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THE GRAFTON HISTORICAL SERIES 
Edited by HENRY R. STILES, A.M., M.D. 



The Grafton Historical Series 
Edited by Henry R. Stiles, A.M., M.D. 



In Olde Connecticut 

By Charles Burr Todd 

12mo. Cloth, $1.25 net (postage 10c.) 



Historic Hadley 

By Alice Morehouse Walker 

12mo. Cloth, illustrated, $1.00 net 

(postage 10c.) 



In Press 

King Philip's War 

By George W. Ellis and 

John E. Morris 




- 

H 

O 

w 



HISTORIC HADLEY 

A STORY OF THE MAKING OF A FAMOUS 
MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 



BY 

ALICE MOREHOUSE WALKER 

Author of " Historic Homes of Amherst," and 
other sketches of local history 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 



PUBLISHERS 



NEW YORK 






UL'KARYef CONGRESS 
TvroCooics Received 

AUG 28 1906 

-Xopynpht Fntry 
CLASS 43| AAC No. 



Copyright, 1906, 
By THE GRAFTON PRESS. 






TO 



THE SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN, PROFESSIONAL MEN 
AND LAYMEN, TILLERS OF THE SOIL AND PRODUCERS 
OF WEALTH AND WELL-BEING SCATTERED THROUGH- 
OUT MANY STATES AND RESIDENT IN FOREIGN PARTS, 
DESCENDANTS ALL OF THOSE FIRST SETTLERS WHO 
FOUNDED HADLEY AMID THE MEADOWS OF THE WIND- 
ING CONNECTICUT MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AGO, 
THIS SIMPLE STORY OF GREAT DEEDS IS DEDICATED. 



FOREWORD 

LOVE of one's own town is one of the dominant 
motives underlying good citizenship. The ori- 
gin, growth, and development of a typical New England 
town, covering two centuries and a half, is a theme on 
which any thoughtful person may profitably dwell. 
In these busy days, however, few people have the time 
necessary to read a ponderous volume. For the many 
rather than the few this little book has been written. 

The lands of the early settlers of Hadley are pass- 
ing into the possession of the children of aliens, and 
the town -meeting, church, school, and homes are for 
these strangers to control. This book is for these 
also, that they may be imbued with the spirit of those 
mighty souls, which remains still potent enough to 
make Americans out of Europeans, even as in 1776 it 
made patriots and freemen out of the subjects of King 
George. 

In the endeavor to make these pages interesting and 
to impart to them the fascination of a story, truth has 
not been sacrificed to style. Painstaking effort has 
been made to search the town records, to scrutinize 
every historical document, and to weigh carefully famil- 



viii Foreword 

iar traditions. The old dwellings, the highways and 
byways, the mountains, the river and the meadows, 
the ancient elms, heirlooms and antique relics have 
been questioned and cross-questioned until they have 
broken their silence of centuries and told the story of 
by-gone days. 

The author acknowledges with pleasure the help de- 
rived from the study of the voluminous manuscripts of 
Sylvester Judd, now carefully guarded in the Forbes 
Library in Northampton, and his " History of Hadley," 
completed after his death by the late Lucius M. Bolt- 
wood. Credit should also be given for the aid afforded 
by " The History of the Hopkins Fund," prepared and 
published under the direction of the Trustees of Hop- 
kins Academy. "The History of Western Massachu- 
setts,^ by J. G. Holland, has elucidated some interesting 
points of the narrative. 

It is hoped that this volume will be read and re-read, 
and that copies will be sent with the best wishes of the 
senders to distant friends, that all the world may be 
familiar with Historic Hadley, sitting by the riverside, 
the mother of towns, of churches, and of schools. 

A. M. W. 

Amherst, Mass., July 4, 1906. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

The Founders and Their Fortunes .... 1 

The Indian Owners of the Quonektacut Valley. The " Engag- 
ers." The Emigration. Establishing the New Town. The 
First Winter in " Norwottuck Beyond Springfield." Laying Out 
the Broad Street. The Meadows and the Plains. Varied Duties 
of the New Settlers. Origin of the Name Hadley. Parson John 
Russell and His Work. Joseph Kellogg and His Ferry. Build- 
ing the Meeting-house. Home Lots on the Broad Street. Exten- 
sion of the Town Limits. Death of Governor Webster. Doctor 
John Westcarr. Hadley Dames Presented in Court for Wearing 
Silk. Secession of the " West Siders." Preparation for Trials to 
Come. 

CHAPTER II 

A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley .... 22 

General Edward Whalley and General William Goffe, Fugitives 
from the High Court of Justice. Parson Russell's Hospitality. 
News of King Philip's Uprising. The Hampshire Troop of Horse- 
men. The Ambuscade near the Indian Fort. The Attack. The 
Angel Sent from God. Days of Terror. Death of Captain 
Lothrop near Muddy Brook. Burning of Springfield. Hopeless 
Condition of Hadley. The Winter of 1675 and 1676. Preparing 
for a Siege. Building the Palisades. Death of Deacon Goodman 
and Captivity of Thomas Reed. The "Falls Fight." Friendly 
Indian Allies. The Parade of the Army from Connecticut on Had- 
ley Street. Feeding the Swarm of Soldiers. The Attack on 
Hadley, June 12, 1676. The "Great Gun." Superstitious Ter- 
rors. Mary Webster, the Witch. Death of Parson Russell. 



x Contents 

CHAPTER III 

The Church in Old Hadley 40 

I. — The Pastorate of Rev. Isaac Chauncey 

Securing the New Pastor. Murder of Richard Church by In- 
dians. Discovery and Punishment of the Murderers. Controversy 
Regarding the Seating of the Meeting-house. Effect of the Peace 
of Utrecht. Removing the Fortifications. The Arts of Peace. 
Building the Second Meeting-house. Later Repairs and Renova- 
tions. Church Manners and Customs. Slavery in Hadley. 
Joshua Boston and Arthur Prutt, Two Hadley Slaves. The Sad 
Story of Caesar Prutt. Selling a Slave at Amherst Town-meeting. 
The Extraordinary Adventure of Zebulon Prutt. Establishment 
of the Southern Precinct Beyond the Mountain. Setting Off the 
East Precinct. The Interrupted Career of Israel Chauncey. 
Activity of Parson Chauncey and His Final Retirement. 

II. — The Pastorates of Rev. Chester Williams and 
Dr. Samuel Hopkins 

rrosperity in Hadley. Parson Williams 1 Wardrobe. Jonathan 
Edwards and His Controversy. Appointment of the Hadley Min- 
ister as Scribe of the Council of Churches. Sickness and Death of 
Parson Williams. Ordination of Rev. Samuel Hopkins. His 
Marriage to Mrs. Chester Williams. The "Awful Earthquake" 
in Hadley. Home of Captain Moses Porter. His Call to Duty, and 
Death in the Battle of Lake George. Burial of Madam Porter. 
Personality of Rev. Samuel Hopkins. Burning of the Pastor's 
House. A Presage of Revolution. The Call to Arms. News of the 
Battle of Lexington. The Porter Family in Old Hadley. The 
Porter Homestead, the Oldest House in Hadley. Colonel Elisha 
Porter's Call to Quebec. Return of Part of Burgoyne's Army to 
Hadley. Hospitality of Colonel Porter. The Sword of Burgoyne. 
Hadley Soldiers in the Revolution. Shays' Rebellion. General 
Lincoln with His Army in Hadley. Preaching to the Soldiers 
from Behind a Pulpit of Snow. Planning the Third Meeting- 
house. Dedication of the New Building. 

III. — Rev. John Woodbridge and His Successors 

Death and Burial of Dr. Hopkins. Rev. John Woodbridge. 
Visit of President Timothy Dwight. Moving the Meeting-house. 
Division in the Church. The Withdrawal from the First Church 
and the Establishment of the Russell Church. Successors of Rev. 
Mr. Woodbridge. The Old Church To-day. 



Contents xi 

CHAPTER IV 

Hopkins Grammar School and Academy . . 74 

Early Ideas Concerning Schools. Parson Russell's Desire. 
Governor Edward Hopkins and His Will. Trustees of the Will. 
The Hadley Trustees of the Grammar School. The Hadley School 
Meadows, and the Committee in Charge. First Teaching in Had- 
ley. Caleb Watson and His School. School Regulations. Early 
Hadley Teaching. The First Schoolhouse. Investment of the 
Funds. The School Mill. Departure of Ruling Elder Goodwin, 
and His Suit Against the Trustees. Burning of the Mill During the 
War. Efforts to Make the School an English School. Opposition 
of Parson Russell to the Scheme. Town-meeting at Break of 
Day. Re-establishment of the Grammar School. The New School 
Committee. Josiah Pierce, the Schoolmaster Who Raised Pota- 
toes. The Brick Academy Building. Later Preceptors of Hop- 
kins Academy. Decline of the Academy. The Free High School. 
Burning of the Academy Building. Sale of School Lands and of 
the Mill Site. Graduates and Former Students of Hopkins Gram- 
mar School and Academy. 



CHAPTER V 

The Wealth of the River and the Fertile 

Meadows 98 

The Connecticut River in Olden Time. The Indians and the 
River. Pines Along the Bank. Influence of the River on the 
Early Settlements. Floods. Shad and Salmon. The Fishery at 
the " Greate Falls." Lumbering in the Valley Towns. Trouble 
on Account of Logs. Rafting. The Lumber Road and the Saw 
Mills. Traffic on the River. The " Great Canoes." The Falls 
Boats. The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals. Digging a 
Canal Around the Great Falls. Planting Elms in Hadley Street. 
A New Kind of " Corn Seed." The Broom Corn Industry. The 
First Steamboats on the River. The Coming of the Barnet. A 
Voyage on the Vermont. The Steamboat William Hall Plying 
Between Hadley and Hartford. A Picnic on the Franklin. The 
Railroad to Springfield from Northampton. Railroad Connection 
with Boston. Connecting Electric Trolley Lines. Passing of the 
Romance of the River. 



xii Contents 

CHAPTER VI 

The Burial Place of Hadley's Honored Dead 117 

First Burial on the Meadow Plain. Burial of Governor John 
Webster. The Old Hadley Cemetery. Inscription on the Web- 
ster Monument. Death and Burial of Each of the Founders. Rude 
Gravestones on the Older Graves. Burial of Hadley Slaves. 
Early Funeral Fashions. The Earliest Monuments Marking the 
Graves of Parson Russell and His Wife. Inscriptions on These 
Stones. Stones Marking the Graves of the Other Ministers. 
Grave of Bishop Frederic D. Huntington. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Oldest House in Hadley. (Built in 1713.) (See p. 63.) 

Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Old Hadley Street To-day (looking south from Russell Street) 14 
The Meadow Plain and the Holyoke Mountains (looking 

southeast from the river) 22 

The Present Hadley Meeting-house. (Built in 1808 and 

moved to its present site in 1840) 40 

Hopkins Academy Building. (Built in 1894) 74 

The Connecticut River and the Meadow Plain (looking north 

from the railroad) 98 

Old Hadley Burying Ground 117 



HISTORIC HADLEY 



HISTORIC HADLEY 

CHAPTER I 

THE FOUNDERS AND THEIR FORTUNES 

THE Indian owners of the valley bordering on 
Quonektacut, the "Great River," were very 
desirous that the English should settle in their midst. 
These lordly hunters scorned the thought of labor, 
and their toiling squaws were able to cultivate but a 
small portion of the fertile openings between the 
groups of pines and cedars. The white man, after 
the bargain was completed, would be willing that his 
red brothers should hunt in his forests and fish in 
his streams, and for his meadow land would pay long 
strings of wampum, coats and breeches, guns and 
ammunition, brass kettles, knives and needles, with 
perhaps a taste of the fiery drink known as "kill 
devil" to seal the bargain. 

The Puritan members of the churches in Hartford 
and Wethersfield differed among themselves concerning 
baptism. Therefore the minority in each congregation 
withdrew from its communion, and, encouraged by 
Parson Russell of Wethersfield, commissioned Major 
John Pynchon, the famous trader, to buy for them a 



2 Historic Hadley 

portion of the Massachusetts wilderness where in 
peace they might practise and believe. The old chief- 
tains Chickwallopp, Umpanchala, and Quonquont 
were ready to sell their ancient heritage, and the 
Connecticut " withdrawers " were anxious to buy. 
The bargain, therefore, was soon concluded; each red 
man made his mark upon the deed ; and the land from 
Mount Holyoke on the south, to Mount Toby and 
Mohawk Brook on the north, and extending eastward 
nine miles into the woods, passed into the possession 
of Major Pynchon, and was by him transferred to 
the "withdrawers," who termed themselves "Strict 
Congregationalists," and adhered to the good old 
doctrines and opposed all new-fangled notions in 
preaching and practise. The "withdrawers," by this 
historic act transformed into the "engagers," at a 
meeting held April 18, 1659, in Hartford, in the home 
of Goodman Ward, signed an agreement to "remove 
themselves and their families out of the jurisdiction of 
Conecticut into the jurisdiction of the Mattachusets." 
They also appointed William Westwood, Richard 
Goodman, William Lewis, John White, and Nathaniel 
Dickinson "to go up to the aforesaid plantation and 
lay out 59 homelots." Most of the signers of this 
agreement had never seen the place which was to 
become their home. 

Many of these " engagers " were men of wealth and 
learning, holding responsible positions which they were 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 3 

willing to relinquish for conscience's sake. Among the 
leaders was the Honorable John Webster, a former 
governor of Connecticut and one of the Commissioners 
of the United Colonies, who had been deeply interested 
in the controversy of the churches. He died in Hadley 
when the town was still in its infancy. His daughter 
Elizabeth married William Markham, one of the 
"engagers," and Anne, another daughter, became the 
wife of John Marsh, whose name also is on the list. 
John Russell, Sr., a glazier by trade, cast his fortunes 
with his son, Parson John Russell, the leader of the 
Wethersfield contingent, and signed the agreement. 
Lieutenant Samuel Smith, a "man of note," also was 
an "engager," and was foremost among the promoters 
of the embryo settlement. These all appear among 
the Hadley pioneers, the real founders of the town. 
Others, less constant in their purpose, allowed their 
signatures to stand, but carried their projects no farther. 
The journey from Hartford northward into the 
wilderness was beset with difficulty. The "Greate 
Falls" prevented transportation by water and the 
Holyoke mountains stood squarely across the most 
direct pathway by land. Undaunted, however, a few 
of the "engagers" packed their household goods in 
ox carts, made nests for their children among the 
feather beds, mounted each his wife behind him on a 
pillion, and thus plodded along the rugged cart-way to 
Windsor, and thence through Waranoke, now West- 



4 Historic Hadley 

field, toward Northampton, the new town which was 
to be their western neighbor. Crossing the river in 
canoes, they pitched their tents until cabins could be 
built for temporary homes. 

Once arrived at their destination, these energetic 
and methodical pioneers determined that from the 
first everything should be done decently and in order. 
November 9, 1659, they called a town-meeting, and 
appointed a committee of seven "to order all public 
occasions that concern the good of the plantation 
for the Yeare Insuing." This committee made a 
"rate" to pay the minister's salary, and sent messen- 
gers to Hartford and Wethersfield that those "en- 
gagers" who had not removed might not fail to 
contribute their share. The town was laid out on 
both sides of the river, Richard Fellows being the first 
settler on the west side. He was followed by Thomas 
Meekins, William Allis, Nathaniel Dickinson, Jr., 
Thomas Graves and his sons Isaac and John, Samuel 
Belding, Stephen Taylor, John White, Jr., Daniel 
Warner, Richard Billing, Zachariah Field, Daniel 
White, John Cowls, Samuel Dickinson, and John Cole- 
man. Before 1661 these had built their homes on 
what is now Hatfield Street, then known as the 
"West Side." Among the settlers who established 
themselves on the east side of the river were the 
townsmen: William Westwood, Nathaniel Dickinson, 
Samuel Smith, Thomas Standley, John White, Rich- 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 5 

ard Goodman, and Nathaniel Ward. Exactly what 
other families may have been there we cannot tell. 
Lest there should be jealousy it was voted that "All 
that sett down on the land on the west side of the 
river shall be one with those on the east side, both 
in ecclesiastical and civil matters," and for several 
years both "siders" made strenuous efforts to make 
good this action of the town. 

And so came into being the nameless settlement in 
the wilderness of "Norwottuck beyond Springfield." 
We can readily imagine the difficulties which must 
have beset the colonists during that first winter of 
1659 and 1660. Overlooking the southern meadow 
was an Indian fort from which the few small houses 
in Northampton could be seen. Toward the north the 
chieftain Quonquont and his tribe lived in their wig- 
wams beside the river. The idle, thriftless Indians were 
friendly neighbors, upon whom the settlers must have 
depended for favors without end. The native hunter 
drove many a sharp bargain with his white brother 
for corn and maple sugar, taking pay in ammuni- 
tion, knives, and needles which could not well be 
spared from the white man's scanty store, while the 
squaw for a consideration furnished moccasons and 
deerskins ready dressed, from which warm clothing 
was made. Thus protected from the cold the heads 
of families and elder sons were obliged to hunt 
on the mountains and fish through the ice to 



6 Historic Hadley 

secure sufficient daily food. With energetic strokes 
the choppers felled great pine trees and cleared the 
underbrush in preparation for the other "engagers" 
who might come in the spring. The woods were full 
of howling wild beasts, and wolves nightly prowled 
around the clearing. Where now we see the wide and 
level street, there then were ridges and hollows and 
ponds. That winter must have been a season of 
arduous toil, and with the spring came the great floods 
which caused the hearts of the newcomers to fail 
within them. 

With perseverance, however, the pioneers laid out 
their broad highway, twenty rods in width, bordered 
with home lots of eight acres each. This street ex- 
tended across the peninsula, with the " Greate River " 
for its boundary at either end. Samuel Smith and 
Peter Tilton measured and staked the lots for three- 
pence per acre, and caused the name of each pro- 
prietor to be placed upon his stake. He was then 
required to enclose his own lot by a fence made of 
five rails fastened to posts four feet high. Another 
way of fencing was to dig a ditch three feet wide and 
two feet deep and throw the earth upon one bank, on 
which a fence of three rails was set. Every man was 
obliged to labor on the fences at the ends of the street 
and at the west end of the "laines" running into the 
woods, at each of which there was to be maintained 
a "Goode Gaite." 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 7 

The vast eastern forests were known as the " Woods " 
or the "Pine Plain," and the western and southern 
grazing lands constituted the "Greate Meadowe," 
within whose boundary lines was the " Forlorn Hope." 
The little " Aqua Vitse " meadow bordered the river near 
the home of the ferryman, Joseph Kellogg. In 1663 
Hockanum meadow was divided and ordered to be 
fenced by its owners. Each person was obliged to 
keep his cattle on his own part of the meadow, on 
penalty of twelvepence fine for every "hoge" or 
" shoate," and one shilling eightpence for a " score of 
sheepe" that should go astray. The sharp eyes of 
the hay ward, Goodman Richard Montague, were 
always on the lookout for offenders, as he received a 
percentage on all fines collected. Viewers of fences 
were men of importance in those days, as upon their 
faithfulness depended the welfare of the little hamlet. 
Almost before the fences were built William Westwood 
and Thomas Standley were chosen to perform that 
duty. Each person had "plow land" and "moeing 
land" in the "Greate Meadowe," and some living in 
the south part of the town were given shares in Fort 
Meadow, its swamp being accounted "two for one." 
To see that these cultivated fields, upon the products 
of which the very existence of the settlement depended, 
were not disturbed by the droves of young horses and 
cattle which roamed on the mountains and through the 
woods required constant care of many miles of fencing. 



8 Historic Hadley 

In addition to service for the public welfare, each 
farmer was compelled at first to be his own carpenter 
and blacksmith, and to grind his own corn, and make 
his own bolts, and "pailes" and clapboards and 
shingles. He was ordered by the town fathers, after 
felling any "rift timber" (oak) or any "pine tree," to 
make it at once into needed articles, on penalty of 
having it confiscated by any one who chose to take it. 
Those of the settlers who, like Nathaniel Dickinson, 
had several lusty sons to share their toil must have 
been envied by others who were wholly dependent for 
assistance upon neighbors and the few who were 
willing to work for wages. 

The citizens of the "Newtown," as the settlement 
was sometimes called, had now secured their hearts' 
desire for freedom from controversy with regard to the 
"half way covenant," but they had no meeting-house, 
and did not possess even a legal name. Those among 
the Hartford men who came from Essex, in England, 
were glad to christen their new home Hadleigh, or 
Hadley, dear to their youthful hearts in days gone by, 
and in 1661 this action was confirmed by the General 
Court in Boston. 

John Russell, Jr., the minister of Wethersfield, who 
with a portion of his flock had already cast his lot 
with the " engagers," was willing to accept the formal 
call to build up a church among a united people. 
His father had secured an allotment of land on Hadley 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 9 

street, and his brother Philip was one of the settlers 
on the "West Side." The parson, John Jr., was 
graduated from Harvard College in 1645 when nine- 
teen years of age, preached in Wethersfield about ten 
years, and probably came to Hadley in 1660. In that 
year the "Said Inhabitants and Planters" voted to 
pay him eighty pounds annual salary, and gave him 
a home lot of eight acres next to the middle highway 
leading to the woods. The minister had to build his 
own house and clear his own land. No mention is 
made of any provision by the people of firewood 
for his use. So in order that Ins wife and three 
little children should not freeze, the minister was 
obliged to chop down trees and draw them to his 
own dooryard. At first he had no servants, and the 
three negro slaves included in the inventory of his 
estate were probably bought years later when family 
cares had increased. Parson Russell's salary was paid 
in winter wheat at three shillings threepence, peas at 
two shillings sixpence, and Indian corn at two shillings 
per bushel, all of which commodities had to be ex- 
changed for other goods as there was little money. 
But though obliged to perform much manual labor, 
the minister was not required to offer prayer at funerals, 
or to officiate at weddings, the latter duty being per- 
formed by the justice of the peace. No doubt the 
magistrate united the minister himself first to Mary 
Talcott, then to Rebecca, daughter of Thomas 



10 Historic Hadley 

Newbury of Windsor, and again to Phebe, widow of 
Rev. John Whiting of Hartford. Rebecca, the wife 
who came with Parson Russell to Hadley, is buried 
by his side in the old Hadley cemetery. 

Jonathan Russell, the son of the minister, was for 
twenty-eight years pastor of the church in Barnstable, 
and Samuel, another son, was the minister in Bran- 
ford, Connecticut. These two, and John, the first 
born son, who died when young, were inmates of that 
new Hadley home. William Westwood, the first local 
magistrate authorized to unite couples in marriage, 
pronounced his own daughter Sarah and Aaron Cooke 
husband and wife, after which they doubtless partook 
of "sack posset" by way of a mild celebration after 
the good old fashion. This was the first wedding in 
Hadley. Parson Russell did not perform a marriage 
ceremony in Hadley until just before his death. 

The newly appointed minister preached his first ser- 
mon in a private house, for, in spite of their best efforts, 
the settlers could not build a meeting-house that first 
year. December 12, 1661, we find the statement in the 
records : " The Town have ordered that they will Build 
and erect A meeting house to be a place for publick 
worship, whose figure is 45 foote in length, and 24 
foote in Bredth, with Leantors on both sides, which 
shall Marge the whole to 36 in Bredth." "This shall 
be scittuated and sett up on the common street." 
But other matters were so pressing that it seems to 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 11 

have taken them long to build the Lord's house, and 
probably during this time meetings were held in the 
home of some leading church member. 

The people, however, were not idle, for public 
affairs demanded much attention. Joseph Kellogg, 
the first ferryman, had built his house on the ferry lot 
at the south end of the street, where he received as 
fares eightpence in wheat, or sixpence in money, for 
man and horse. On lecture days, when six or more 
persons went together, the rate was decreased, and 
after dark the fares were doubled. The ferryman was 
also allowed to keep an "ordinary" and entertain 
strangers. Lieutenant Joseph, who afterward became 
the father of twenty children, had quite a family even 
now, and with his ferry passengers and guests he for 
one could not have had much time to assist in building 
the meeting-house. The town had to aid Parson 
Russell in the work of putting an addition on his 
dwelling, and then at his request engaged William 
Goodwin as an elder to assist him in his work. Part 
of the parish being across the river there must have 
been times when two men were absolutely required to 
look after manners and morals according to the rigid 
standard of that day. Many town-meetings were held, 
for absence from which penalties were imposed on 
busy men. The farmers held chopping bees and felled 
great trees in such a manner as to form bridges over the 
smaller brooks, and built a more elaborate bridge 



12 Historic Hadley 

for horses, oxen, and carts across Fort River on the 
Springfield road, and contributed toward the expense 
of laying out a " commodious way to the Bay." Wearied 
with the labor of grinding their grain in their own 
homes they offered Goodman Meekins a fifty-pound 
allotment on the west side of the "Greate River" 
upon which to build a mill, the citizens agreeing to 
patronize him so long as he made good meal. Thomas 
Wells and John Hubbard were appointed to carry the 
corn in a boat across the river twice a week, and to 
bring back the meal, for which they should receive 
threepence a bushel, each farmer to have his corn 
ready and his bags marked with his name. Finally a 
sawmill was erected on Mill River, thus making it less 
difficult to get out lumber. 

Again the citizens brought up the matter of building 
the meeting-house, and on August 27, 1663, in town- 
meeting assembled, passed the following resolution: 
"The town have voted (nemine contradicente) that 
they will with all convenient speede, endeavour and 
set aboute the building and erecting a meeting house 
for publick worshipp." The following committee was 
put in charge: William Clarke, Samuel Smith, William 
Westwood, John Barnard, Thomas Meekins, Nathaniel 
Dickinson, and Isaac Graves. The work at last was 
started and this time the attempt was a success, although 
the building was not completed for seven years. The 
construction of the "Leantors" was abandoned and 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 13 

there is every reason to believe that the house as first 
used conformed in other respects to the original plan. 
According to the vote the building was " scittuated and 
sett up in the common street," toward the north, in 
order to accommodate residents on the "West Side." 
The solid framework was put together and, after 
delay, was raised, but the building was not then com- 
pleted, possibly because the western settlers had already 
begun to discuss plans for having a meeting-house 
and minister of their own. 

Great was the alarm at the thought of the desertion 
of the "West Siders," for the whole parish found it 
difficult to raise enough grain with which to pay 
Parson Russell's salary. Should the western part of 
the parish secede, taking with it the corn mill, the 
settlement would be crippled indeed! There seems 
to have been some discussion in regard to moving the 
half-finished meeting-house, for the vote stands to the 
effect: "Untill the Lord makes it appear that one 
part of us have a call to make a society of themselves," 
they would remain united and let the meeting-house 
stand "in or about the place where it was wrought 
and framed." Thus referring the matter to the Lord, 
they proceeded with the work, and soon the little 
building, similar in fashion to the one in Hartford, 
was firmly set upon its hill, that it might not be hid. 
Above its solid frame rose a sloping roof, alike on all 
four sides, with probably a turret in the middle for 



14 Historic Hadley 

the bell which they hoped soon to secure. The com- 
mittee then collected the roughly hewn "Boards and 
Rales" from the individuals by whom they had been 
prepared, and made long benches without backs, 
and a rude pulpit, after which they rested to await 
developments. 

A stranger coming into Hadley from the south, in 
1663, would cross the river on Joseph Kellogg's ferry- 
boat, and would possibly take dinner with him and 
his numerous family in the ferry-house at the Aqua 
Vitse meadow. The settlement at this time was laid 
out on both sides of the broad street which extended 
north and south across the eastern part of the peninsula 
made by the river in its detour westward toward 
Northampton. The land enclosed between the street 
and the river on the west was the fertile Meadow 
Plain. To the east stretched the vast Pine Plain or 
Woods. Leading away westward from the street were 
three highways, known respectively as the north, 
middle, and south highway to the meadow, and three 
similar highways led from the main street eastward 
toward the woods. At the extreme southeastern corner 
of the settlement, on the southern side of the south 
highway to the woods, lived John Russell, Sr., father 
of the minister. Nathaniel Dickinson, and his son 
Thomas Dickinson, lived in the same section of the 
town on the eastern side of the street and north of the 
south highway. Next in the line on the east side of 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 15 

the street was the house of William Westwood, in the 
midst of his eight-acre lot, where he lived with his 
wife, Bridget, and daughter, Sarah, who married 
Aaron Cooke. Then came the home of Richard 
Goodman and his w T ife, Mary Terry of Windsor, and 
infant son, John. Others who lived on the east side 
of the street in the southeastern section were : William 
Lewis, who in 1662 represented Hadley in the Gen- 
eral Court; the Hon. Peter Tilton, recorder, repre- 
sentative, associate judge of the county court, and 
"one of the most worshipful assistants of the col- 
ony"; John White, also a representative; Thomas 
Stanley, and Nathaniel Stanley, his son; Andrew 
Bacon; and John Barnard, afterward slain by the 
Indians. 

In the northeastern section of the settlement, on the 
east side of the street, just north of the middle highway 
to the woods, lived Parson Russell, and immediately 
north was the town lot. North of the town lot on the 
east side of the street were the homes of John Hub- 
bard, Thomas Wells, Samuel Porter of Windsor, 
whose son Samuel became judge and sheriff of the 
county and the father of thirteen children; John 
Dickinson, the son of Nathaniel; Richard Mon- 
tague, the grave-digger; Lieut. Samuel Smith, a 
"man of note"; and his son Philip Smith, who was 
afterwards slain by the machinations of the witch 
Mary Webster; Thomas Coleman; and William Par- 



16 Historic Hadley 

trigg. Next on the north lived A. Nichols, John 
Ingram, John Taylor, and Wm. Pixley. 

In the northwestern quarter of the settlement, north 
of the northern highway to the meadow, lived Samuel 
Gardner. South of the northern highway and on the 
western side of the street lived Chileab Smith, son 
of Lieutenant Samuel Smith ; Joseph Baldwin ; Robert 
Boltwood; Francis Barnard, father of John Barnard; 
John Hawkes; Richard Church; and Edward Church, 
his son. South of the middle highway and on the 
western side of the street were the homes of Henry 
Clark, "a wealthy and distinguished man"; Stephen 
Terry; Andrew Warner; John Marsh; Timothy Nash, 
the blacksmith; Governor John Webster; William 
Goodwin; John Crow; Samuel Moody; Nathaniel 
Ward; and William Markham, who married Eliza- 
beth, the daughter of Governor Webster. 

The unfinished meeting-house stood in the middle 
of the broad street about opposite the house of John 
Dickinson, somewhat to the north of the middle high- 
way. All about it up and down the broad street 
were the homes of these founders of Hadley, heroic 
men, imbued with the spirit of the Pilgrims and 
the courage of their convictions. The innumerable 
company of their descendants, scattered abroad 
throughout the earth, are proud to trace their an- 
cestry back to the pioneer settlers of this famous 
New England town. The visitor would have seen 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 17 

small, unpretentious dwellings, a rough unpainted 
meeting-house, and signs of a rude colonial life. But 
he would have found the dwellers in these homes to 
be men of education and refinement, and women of 
energy and determination, bringing up their children 
in the fear of God and with a wholesome respect for 
man. Out of such material was this nation builded. 

Exactly when the congregation left the private house 
and began to worship in the church building we cannot 
tell, but probably as soon as the seats were finished. 
Perched in the pulpit high against the wall, good 
Parson Russell looked down upon his flock, and dis- 
cussed and determined doctrinal points to the satis- 
faction of all concerned. The town voted to buy a 
bell "brought up by Lieut. Smith and some other," 
and to pay for it in wheat at three shillings per 
bushel, which amounted to about twenty-five dollars. 
Finding its feeble tones were scarcely heard across 
the river, and fearing lest the "West Siders" would 
recognize in this grievance the looked for sign of a 
call from the Lord, a parishioner left in his will a 
sum of money with which to buy a larger bell, that 
might be heard generally by the inhabitants. At last 
a committee was chosen " to procure such a bell as is 
at Northampton," which proves that the Hadley 
people were progressive and not to be outdone by 
the town on the other side of the river. 

Pending this action the lusty bell-ringer, standing 



18 Historic Hadley 

in the audience room, pulled the rope which came 
down through the ceiling, and strained the voice of 
the little bell to its utmost, as he summoned the faith- 
ful to the Sunday service. Across the river in boats, 
and from north and south on foot, on horseback, 
and in rude carts, they came, fathers and brothers 
well armed, though in time of peace, and mothers 
with their younger children, through summer's heat 
and winter's cold, to sit on the hard benches through 
the long and tedious service. It seems a significant 
fact that two years after the galleries were put into 
the meeting-house the town passed the vote which has 
been so many times quoted: "that there shall be some 
sticks set up in the meeting-house, in several places, 
with some fit persons placed by them, to use them as 
occasion shall require to keep the youth from disorder." 

The Indians, too, were scattered throughout the 
congregation, and greeted the settlers with the friendly 
salutation "Netop" and were seeming converts to 
the Christian faith; and yet the shrewd old-time 
fathers felt it wise not to trust them too far even on 
Sunday, and appointed special guards for the Lord's 
day, and for lectures and public meetings for God's 
worship. The citizens were organized into a military 
company for which the townsmen procured a drum, 
and thus in time of peace prepared for war. 

Attempts were made to clear the highways of pine 
trees, logs, woodpiles, and "other encumbrances " 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 19 

which had collected in front of the houses. The town 
voted "their desire of John Prentice of New London 
to come and sitt amongst them as a smith," and offered 
him the "lott sequestered for a smith." When he 
declined they opened communication with Deacon 
Hinsdale at the Bay "for a Smith then living in rox- 
berrie." 

Before the meeting-house was finished it was con- 
sidered to be the center of the town, for, taking the 
building as an objective point, in 1663 the General 
Court decided that Hadley should extend five miles 
up the river, five miles down the river, and four miles 
from the most eastern point of the river. Those who 
were dependent upon their cattle and grain to pay 
their living expenses urged that they needed more 
extended pastures, as much of their feeding-ground was 
barren pine plain. After a time they were given land 
extending two more miles to the east, and the meadows 
to the south. 

In 1670 the settlers on the west side of the river, 
assured at last that the Lord had called them to be- 
come a separate town, left their former brethren, and 
built for themselves a meeting-house on their own 
broad street. This was a blow to Hadley by which 
Parson Russell lost some of his best supporters. Val- 
uable members of the church had also been removed 
by death. The remains of Governor John Webster 
were carried on the shoulders of his fellow townsmen 



20 Historic Hadley 

and laid away to rest in the burying-ground, and his 
loss was deeply felt. His body was committed to the 
grave by Sexton Richard Montague, who received for 
the service fifteen shillings. 

The Indians still roamed from place to place, begging 
the planters to plow their fields, and to give them 
medicines and liquor for fancied ailments. Dr. John 
Westcarr not only cured their diseases, but sold them 
"strong water" contrary to law, for which he was 
fined and admonished. His widow, Hannah, spent 
his "good estate" for gay silk gowns, for which she 
was presented in the Northampton court. Hadley 
people, however, to a good degree, lived a simple life. 
They ate their dinner when the sun reached the noon 
mark on the southern window casing, lighted their 
houses with candle-wood, picked huckleberries in the 
streets and home lots, feasted on honey stored by wild 
bees in hollow trees, and washed their garments with 
soft soap brought from Connecticut by John Pynchon. 
The hunters shot deer for food and clothing, and 
waged a relentless warfare upon the wolves which 
destroyed their flocks. Hogs, with rings in their 
snouts, and wearing yokes two and one half times the 
thickness of their necks, ran through Hadley streets. 
Horses and young cattle grazed on the Pine Plain 
and along the mountain side. 

Thus until 1675 the fifty families which composed 
the settlement were enabled to maintain themselves, 



The Founders and Their Fortunes 21 

and live in peace and quietness, with none to disagree 
with them in matters of religious doctrine. They 
governed their unruly members with a steady hand. 
The law of the General Court that persons whose 
estate did not exceed <£200 should not wear gold and 
silver lace, or garments made of silk, was rigorously 
enforced. The wives of John Westcarr, Joseph Bar- 
nard, Thomas Wells, Jr., Edward Granniss, and 
Joseph Kellogg, and Maiden Mary Broughton, were 
arraigned before Northampton judges as persons of 
small estate "wearing silk contrary to law," and were 
fined, admonished, or acquitted according to the gravity 
of each offense. Later certain young men were con- 
victed of wearing long hair, and were reprimanded by 
the court. A fine of three shillings fourpence was 
imposed "for any person that shall run and race and 
inordinately Gallopp any Horse in any of Hadley 
streets." 

Parson Russell, in the little square meeting-house 
on the hill, was the inspiration of the religious life 
of Hadley, as the building itself was the center 
of the community. The voice of conscience, inter- 
preted by the voice of the preacher, was more powerful 
than the weak notes of the bell, and by a life of obe- 
dience to its dictates the early settlers hardened them- 
selves against the time of trial which awaited them. 



CHAPTER II 

A REIGN OF TERROR IN OLD HADLEY 

The founders of Hadley were brave and valiant 
pioneers, ready to fight for their king across the sea, 
or to defend with their lives their homes and hearth- 
stones. Their pastor, John Russell, was a farmer 
among farmers, who shared the joys and sorrows of 
his people. More than this, unknown to his parish- 
ioners, the unpretentious country parson was a patriot 
and a hero. Many years before, when the little plan- 
tation was only five years old, there had come, stealing 
from their New Haven hiding-place, two strangers 
whom the good minister had received into his home. 
Political opinions were divided then as now, but 
Parson Russell hesitated not to protect those whom 
he believed were persecuted for conscience's sake from 
their enemies in the new country, who would have 
delivered them to ignominious death. 

These fugitives, members of the High Court of 
Justice, by which King Charles I of England was 
dethroned and executed, had, with the restoration 
of the king's son, Charles II, fled to Boston, where 
under assumed names they would fain have made 







O 



q a: 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 23 

their homes. But royal vengeance tarried not. Good 
friends informed the refugees that officers were on 
their track, and the hunted men, led by an Indian 
guide, threaded the forests on foot through Springfield 
to New Haven, where for a time they were allowed to 
rest in peace. News that special commissioners for 
their arrest had arrived in Boston was accompanied 
by the warning that they were no longer safe on Con- 
necticut soil. Then came the journey by night to 
Hadley, and the unseen entrance into a dwelling that 
was indeed to prove a haven of refuge. 

Thus beside the simple life of the country minister's 
home, the unpretentious roof-tree covered a tragedy, 
for within a secret chamber dwelt the regicide judges, 
General Edward Whalley and General William Goffe, 
each with a price upon his head. The children and 
servants of the household went in and out, and knew 
not of the strangers' presence. Peter Tilton and other 
good friends brought letters and supplies sent to Boston 
from the wife and daughter in Old England, and 
carried messages in return. In this rural home the 
cousin of Oliver Cromwell, and his son-in-law, chief 
officers in the Lord Protector's army, dragged out the 
remnant of their lives in constant apprehension of 
discovery. Creeping forth at night, they may have 
been seen by a belated traveler, but such an one, 
imagining that spirits walked abroad, disturbed them 
not. By day, if alarms arose, they descended through 



24 Historic Hadley 

the trap-door in their closet to the cellar, and there 
remained concealed. Deprived of all companionship, 
with little news from the outside world, their linger- 
ing hopes grew fainter, until, it is believed, about 
1676, the old man Whalley died, and was buried in 
an unknown grave. With the safety and maintenance 
of these fugitives, added to the many other cares upon 
his mind and heart, the friendly host and jailer settled 
the petty details of every-day life, adjusted disputes 
with regard to seating the meeting-house, and looked 
sharply after the interests of the grammar school, on 
which depended the educational welfare of the youth. 

Suddenly, one morning, when not a cloud was in 
the sky, the sound of heavy ordnance, as of great guns 
firing charge after charge, shook the earth, and could 
not be explained. Frightened by this strange phenom- 
enon, the despised red "salvages," considered to be as 
harmless as the lazy dogs about the doors, disappeared 
from their accustomed haunts. The record states: 
"They plucked up their wigwams and took away the 
goods they had laid up in our houses." 

News of the Indian uprising led by King Philip had 
reached Hadley, and the strange actions of the natives 
about the settlement had been noted, but rather with 
relief than alarm. Wise men were anxious, but the 
majority felt no fear. Was not the whole county 
protected by the "Hampshire Troop of Horsemen," 
under the leadership of Captain John Pynchon of 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 25 

Springfield? When this famous company paraded 
up and down Hadley street, in uniforms decked with 
gold and silver lace and gay silk sashes, with gaudy 
trappings for the horses, the Indians looked on in 
speechless admiration, eager to see the red flag flutter 
and to hear the martial strains. And, although less 
than twenty Hadley men were enrolled in this troop, 
yet did not the Indians know that every farmer had 
a musket, and a pike fourteen feet long, and that 
some had also the lighter snaphance, with barrel 
three and one half feet in length ? The Hadley militia 
also was ready for defense, with Samuel Smith as its 
lieutenant, and Aaron Cooke, Jr., for its ensign. 
Civilized men, thus armed and well drilled in the fifty- 
eight postures of the gun, and the various maneuvers 
of the pike, ought surely to be able to cope with naked, 
ignorant savages. Thus reasoned many, when almost 
without warning a breathless runner brought tidings 
of the massacre at Brookfield, and terror reigned in 
every heart. 

The Indians in the fort across the river, upon hearing 
the news, gave "eleven triumphing shouts," waking the 
echoes far and near. Too late the settlers realized the 
folly of having so carelessly supplied the natives with 
guns, and attempted peaceably to disarm them, but 
in vain. Their headquarters was the Indian fort 
half-way between Northampton and Hatfield. Cap- 
tains Lothrop and Beers, with about one hundred 



26 Historic Hadley 

men, crossed the river to Hatfield, while reenforce- 
ments from Northampton came to meet them, in- 
tending to parley with the Indians and to try to 
persuade them to give up their weapons. They found 
the fort deserted, but, as they were following the 
trail, suddenly the enemy, hidden in the woods, "let 
fly 40 guns." The fight lasted three hours, during 
which nine men from nine different towns were killed, 
Azariah Dickinson, son of Nathaniel, of Hadley, being 
among the first to fall. Too late the soldiers realized 
that men accustomed to march in bodies, though well 
trained in the arts of war, could not compete with 
an unseen foe, concealed behind trees and unencum- 
bered with clothing. Pikes and heavy muskets were 
of no avail. This was the beginning of sorrows. 

Rev. Solomon Stoddard, in his story of these battles, 
says: "Many sins are so grown in fashion that it 
becomes a question whether they be sins or not," and 
especially mentions "intolerable pride in clothes and 
hair." The Puritans firmly believed that calamities 
came in punishment for sin. The Hadley people were 
not able now, however, to spend much time in repen- 
tance for minor transgressions, as safety was to be 
secured only by constant vigilance. At this time, ac- 
cording to an oft-told tale, the settlers were observing 
a fast day service in the church when it was surrounded 
and attacked by a body of Indians. "Suddenly, in 
the midst of the people, there appeared a man of very 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 27 

venerable aspect and different from the inhabitants 
in his apparel, who took the command, arranged and 
ordered them in the best military manner, and under 
his direction they repelled and routed the Indians and 
the town was saved. . . . The inhabitants could not 
account for the phenomenon, but by considering that 
person as an Angel of God. . . . The Angel was cer- 
tainly General Goffe." Thus runs the tale as related 
by the historian of olden time. For many years this 
story was believed, and the scene, as depicted in the 
old engraving, "The Angel of Hadley," is to-day 
preserved in many homes. Sir Walter Scott, in Peveril 
of the Peak, related the incident, and only recently has 
the modern historian discovered that Hadley was not 
attacked that day, September, 1675, and that the story 
is based only upon a tradition which has no real 
foundation. 

But though this particular attack may not have 
been made, yet the air was full of rumors of war, and 
the panic-stricken inhabitants lived in constant expec- 
tation of slaughter and destruction. We can hardly 
realize the terror of those days in the unprotected 
hamlet, when the forests all about seemed filled with 
the shadows of unseen foes. Again and again, alarmed 
by some unknown cause, the cattle and horses came 
rushing into the clearing in a wild stampede, and the 
women and children hid in the darkest corners of their 
homes, and held their breath for fear. Captain 



28 Historic Hadley 

Lothrop, with seventy men, started toward Deerfield to 
act as a guard for a train of carts laden with grain for 
Hadley. A sudden attack at Muddy Brook caused its 
waters to flow red with the blood of fifty-four soldiers 
and seventeen teamsters, taken off their guard as they 
were plucking grapes by the roadside, while the brave 
captain, attempting to rally his men, fell to rise no 
more. The words of the historian give but little idea 
of the desolation which that fated expedition brought 
to many happy homes. He says: "This was a black 
and fatal day, wherein were 8 persons made widows 
and 20 children made fatherless, all in one little plan- 
tation, and above 60 persons buried in one dreadful 
grave." The brook, so muddy then, has since been 
known as Bloody Brook. The "dreadful grave" is 
marked by a monument with an appropriate inscrip- 
tion that all the world may read. John Barnard, son 
of Francis Barnard of Hadley, was among the teamsters 
slain on this expedition. 

Alarmed by this calamity, the Commissioners of the 
New England Colonies despatched three hundred 
Massachusetts militia and two hundred Connecticut 
soldiers for the defense of Hampshire County. Major 
Pynchon was in Hadley commanding these forces 
when an express reached him in the middle of the 
night with the warning that five hundred of King 
Philip's men were in readiness to fall upon Springfield. 
Almost frantic the Major with his troops started toward 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 29 

the south, to see afar off the sky red with the flames of 
thirty-two blazing houses, only thirteen remaining un- 
harmed. This disaster was not wrought by Philip, 
but by the near neighbors and sometime friends under 
Wequogon, that peaceful sachem who signed the deed 
by which the meadow of Hockanum was added to 
Hadley. That those who had almost been inmates of 
their homes could do such fearful wrong to their 
benefactors created in the hearts of the settlers a 
desire for revenge. By order of the soldiers an old 
squaw was torn to pieces by dogs, and other cruel acts 
unworthy of a civilized people were committed. Good 
Parson Russell, feeling the helplessness of men, wrote: 
"Our town of Hadley is now like to drink next, if 
mercy prevent not, of this bitter cup. We are but 
about 50 families and now left solitary. We desire to 
repose our confidence in the living and eternal God 
who is the refuge of his people." 

The winter of 1675 and 1676 was a season of gloom. 
The Indians seldom fought when the trees were destitute 
of leaves, and so it was determined to prepare for a 
state of siege. In spite of the cold and storm all able- 
bodied men were compelled to work upon the "pali- 
saides," which were built crossing the home lots behind 
the buildings on both sides of the street, and across at 
either end. Solid stakes of timber eight feet long were 
split and sharpened, then driven close together two 
feet into the ground. To these were nailed heavy 



30 Historic Had ley 

horizontal slabs a few inches below the top, thus 
making a fence too high and formidable to climb and 
too thick for bullets to penetrate. This fortified enclo- 
sure was about a mile long, with strong gates in each 
of the four sides. The fighting men were divided into 
military watches, called squadrons, and constant guard 
was kept both night and day. Rumors were abroad 
that Philip and his men were hovering near, and 
though all these reports were unconfirmed, yet in 
imagination the mountain sides swarmed with the 
followers of that dreaded chieftain whose very name 
struck terror to the bravest heart. One morning in 
April, 1676, Deacon Richard Goodman, with a party 
of men, went cautiously out to work in Hockanum 
meadow. The deacon carelessly moved a little beyond 
the guards, the better to observe his fences, when he 
fell shot through the heart, and a scouting party, 
rushing from the woods, seized upon Thomas Reed 
and dragged him away. Thus a widow and eight 
children were added to the helpless ones to be main- 
tained and protected by the town fathers. After this 
it was ordered that when the farmers were haying in 
Hockanum and Fort meadows all the garrison, except 
eight left for the security of the women and children, 
should attend them as a guard, and that not less than 
forty nor more than fifty men at one time should work 
in the meadows. 

About this time Samuel Smith, Lieutenant of the 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 31 

"train-band," being near eighty years of age, requested 
to be freed from military service, and Philip Smith, 
his son, was chosen in his place. That same year 
Joseph Kellogg was an ensign, and the next year he was 
promoted to be lieutenant. Aaron Cooke, who was 
captain of the militia for thirty-five years, inherited 
from his father a book entitled " The Compleat Body 
of the Art Military," and from his study of this prob- 
ably acquired his excellence in the profession of arms. 
But the glory of the Hampshire troopers caused the 
plain militia men to seem but insignificant, although 
when active service was required the farmer soldiers 
were always at the front. 

The minister's house being the headquarters of the 
officers of the troop, it has been supposed that Goffe, 
the regicide, removed to the home of Peter Tilton, 
where he remained the rest of his life. Others believe 
that fearing it would be impossible to keep his presence 
a secret when the town and even his place of refuge 
was filled with soldiers, Parson Russell contrived to 
have his guest escorted to Hartford, and settled among 
friends. The fact that Goffe's diary, from which much 
is learned about his life in New England, was found 
among the effects left by Parson Russell, gives us 
reason to believe that the wanderer was permitted to 
return and spend his last days in Hadley among the 
few faithful ones entrusted with the secret of his 
presence. Communication with his wife and children 



32 Historic Hadley 

failed, and for this reason, wherever he was, he died 
a broken-hearted man. The tradition in Hadley that 
two strangers were buried in Parson Russell's cellar 
gives rise to the belief that the graves of both regicides 
may have been concealed beneath that gloomy chamber 
where they had so often taken refuge. Wherever 
their graves may have been, their poor bodies remained 
undiscovered, and rested in peace. 

Thomas Reed, the captive carried away from Hock- 
anum meadow, escaped and returned with the infor- 
mation that the Indians were gathering in force near 
Deerfield and were "secure and scornful," boasting 
of great things they had done and should do. Alarmed 
by this report the troops and citizens of the river 
towns agreed to strike a decisive blow at the enemy, 
and if possible to attack him in his camp by night. 
A company of fifteen Hadley men, under sergeants 
John Dickinson and Joseph Kellogg, crossed the upper 
ferry and joined the mounted force of one hundred 
and fifty soldiers from Springfield, Westfield, North- 
ampton, and Hatfield, commanded by Captain William 
Turner. The Indian encampment was reached under 
cover of the darkness, according to the plan, and the 
inmates suffered a "great and notable slaughter"; but 
the outcome of the expedition was disastrous, for on 
the return march the Indians fell upon the line, killed 
Captain Turner and thirty-eight of his men, and 
captured others, some of whom were afterward tor- 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 33 

tured and burned at the stake. Isaac Harrison and 
John Crow of Hadley were among the victims, and 
Jonathan Wells, wounded and suffering, reached the 
settlement after wandering three days in the woods. 
A great number of Indians perished in this "Falls 
Fight," and many were drowned in the river. The 
loss of the English was so great, however, that it 
could hardly be considered a victory on their part, 
for the Indian camp was not broken up, and those 
remaining were aroused to a greater fury by the 
attack, which resulted in the death of many of their 
women and children. 

It seemed now most imperative that the headquarters 
of the Indians should be permanently destroyed so 
that the settlers could cultivate their fields and harvest 
their crops in peace. With this in view another expe- 
dition into Hampshire County was organized by sol- 
diers from Connecticut and southern Massachusetts, 
and the first division, consisting of two hundred and 
fifty mounted Englishmen and two hundred friendly 
Indians on foot, started from Norwich and on the 
seventh day arrived in Hadley hungry and footsore. 
The horsemen were mostly from towns along Long 
Island Sound, and the Indians were Pequots, Mohe- 
gans, and Niantics, whose appearance in the streets 
almost caused a panic, as the inhabitants had never 
before seen so large a body of friendly Indians together, 
and could not realize that although they had copper- 



34 Historic Hadley 

colored faces, their "hearts were white." June 8, 
while waiting for the Massachusetts contingent, a 
great parade was held, and the "Army from Connec- 
ticut," four hundred and fifty strong, with colors 
flying, marched up and down Hadley street to 
the sound of drum and fife. Provisions of bread, 
pork, and liquor were brought from Norwich, but not 
in a sufficient quantity to satisfy the soldiers, who 
were billeted in the homes of the citizens, and fed 
with such supplies as could be secured. Their bread 
was found to be unfit for use on account of a "blue 
mould" with which it was discolored, and the tobacco 
demanded was difficult to obtain. 

The town was filled with troops and every home 
was crowded in most uncomfortable fashion. Joseph 
Kellogg and Samuel Partrigg were kept busy ferrying 
passengers and horses across the river, Samuel Porter 
acted as a nurse, Richard Montague, the grave-digger, 
baked the soldiers' bread, and Timothy Nash repaired 
their arms. Dr. William Locke, who came to Hadley 
with Captain Lothrop, dressed wounds and dispensed 
physic to each in turn, as need required. Mr. Russell 
recorded that the board of the officers, whom he enter- 
tained, was paid, but that his wife Rebecca never 
received anything for her great "trouble, cumber and 
care." Probably at this time she was assisted by the 
negro slaves whom her husband left as part of his 
estate. Those of the citizens who were inclined to 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 35 

murmur were thankful indeed when what might have 
been a terrible calamity was turned into a victory by 
the presence of their troublesome guests. 

June 12, 1676, a double surprise occurred, for about 
two hundred river Indians, not knowing that four 
hundred and fifty soldiers from the south had recently 
arrived, made an attack on Hadley and were " terribly 
frighted with the report and slaughter made amongst 
them by the Great Gun." Whether the town had ob- 
tained this terrible weapon, or whether the soldiers 
brought it with them, we cannot tell, and the enemy 
did not stop to find out. It was only a very small 
cannon, but it did good service on this and other 
occasions and caused the Indians to keep at a respectful 
distance. This attack aroused the settlers to take 
extra precautions for the safety of the helpless ones 
entrusted to their care. Stockades were built around 
the meeting-house that the women and children might 
have a place of refuge in case the enemy should get 
inside the fortifications. Every man was compelled 
to go to meeting armed, or to pay a fine of twelve- 
pence, and his arms were not to be stacked at the door 
but were to lie ready at his hand. In this manner the 
Hadley people lived, year after year, fearing for their 
lives until the very fear became a custom. Armed 
men gathered in town-meeting and voted to build new 
fortifications, with rails ten feet long and three inches 
thick, set two feet into the ground. Each squadron 



36 Historic Hadley 

erected a watch house within whose shelter one of 
their number always was on guard. All the males 
over sixteen, with an escort of soldiers, went out to 
clear the Pine Plain east of the town to make it fit for 
pasture. The Indians burned the corn mill with the 
house adjoining, and continued their depredations on 
outlying property which was of necessity left un- 
guarded. It was hoped that the death of King 
Philip in 1676 might bring the Indian warfare to 
a close, but his followers, having tasted blood, were 
no longer dependent on him as a leader in their struggle 
with the whites. War between England and France 
caused friction among the colonies, and resulted in 
battles in which the Indians were used as allies, and 
many more years of anxiety were spent in "scouting 
in woods," "watching by day and warding by night," 
repairing fortifications, and raising the wherewithal to 
pay the burdensome taxes. Hadley, at this time having 
three hundred and twelve inhabitants, had a curious 
way of settling accounts. The town, being indebted 
to a citizen, subtracted his tax rate and the rates of 
others to whom he owed money, and paid him the 
balance in wheat and Indian corn. 

Realizing that war was demoralizing, those in au- 
thority tried to exercise the greater watchfulness as to 
the manners of the people. Gershom Hawkes was 
fined for having in his possession a pack of cards, and 
refusing to tell where he obtained them, and " Joseph 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 37 

Kellogg, Jr., and Gershom Hawkes were fined 10s. 
each for breach of the Sabbath, having travelled till 
midnight the night before the Sabbath." The gen- 
ealogy tells us that the said Gershom Hawkes "died 
young," so his unruly actions did not long trouble his 
associates, and probably Joseph Kellogg, senior, was 
not sorry. Jane Jackson, servant of Lieutenant Philip 
Smith, was given twenty lashes on her bare back before 
the court for stealing from her master. Parents were 
obliged to pay for glass in the meeting-house windows 
broken by their mischievous boys. Samuel Nash, nine 
years old, having been killed by a fall from his horse, 
which was frightened by a dog, the boy's father brought 
suit against Mr. Goodwin, the owner of the dog. The 
jury returned the following verdict: "It doth not 
appeare yt Mr. Goodwin or Mrs. Goodwin had suffi- 
cient notice given them of their dog's curstness or any 
warning to restrayne their dog, and therefore the Corte 
doth acquit them, and accounteth Goodman Nash or 
his wife blameworthy in not having a more strict 
watch over their son, but letting him goe to fetch ye 
mare from pasture with such mean tackling." 

As if Hadley had not enough to endure from with- 
in and without, to the natural fears of her citizens 
were added superstitious terrors, for in the midst of 
the second Indian war Mrs. Mary Webster, reputed 
to be a witch, began to cast an evil eye about her to 
see what mischief she might do. As a consequence, 



38 Historic Hadley 

cattle would stop in front of her house and stand 
trembling until by her magic power she allowed them 
to pass. A load of hay, upset by her machinations, 
returned to its normal position without help from 
human hands, when the woman was threatened by 
the driver. She entered the door of a neighbor's house, 
when lo, the baby in the cradle was raised three feet 
in air, and replaced by an unseen power upon its 
pillow. A hen flew down the chimney into a pot of 
boiling water, and the witch was found to be suffering 
from a scald. Enraged, the citizens " haled her down 
to Boston," where, after trial, she was acquitted and 
returned in triumph to her home, only to revenge 
herself upon Deacon Philip Smith, "a man for devo- 
tion, sanctity, gravity and all that was honest, exceeding 
exemplary. " 

This valuable citizen was, according to Cotton 
Mather, "murdered with an hideous witchcraft." "A 
wretched woman of the town, being dissatisfied at his 
just care about her, expressed herself unto him in such 
a manner that he declared himself apprehensive of 
receiving mischief at her hands." He began to be 
" very valetudinarious " and, after wonderful manifes- 
tations in the sick-room, died, and his body was found 
"full of holes that seemed to be made with awls," all 
of which is related in the Magnalia, with full particulars 
added. While the sufferer was yet alive, a number of 
brisk lads dragged the witch out of the house, hung 



A Reign of Terror in Old Hadley 39 

her up until nearly dead, and then buried her in the 
snow, but, according to the record, " It happened that 
she survived and the melancholy man died." Mary 
Webster lived eleven years after her hanging, and died 
a natural death, a proof to many minds that she really 
was a witch. 

Parson John Russell, after the death of both the 
regicides had removed the shadow from his home, was 
able to devote more time and energy to the work 
among his chosen people. His letters from Hadley to 
officials in Boston, during the Indian wars, contain 
much valuable information concerning the history of 
the town. May, 1665, he preached the election sermon 
at Boston, taking for his text the words, " Pray for the 
peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love 
Thee." This appeal from one living in Hadley at 
that critical period was most significant and must have 
come home to every heart. Worn out with Indian 
alarms, hiding regicides, and fighting witchcraft, on 
December 10, 1692, John Russell, the first minister 
of Hadley, died, and in the depth of winter his body 
was carried to the burying-ground and laid beside his 
wife Rebecca. The inscription on the table of sand- 
stone placed above his grave is studied to-day with 
exceeding interest by the many visitors to this historic 
cemetery. His memory is honored as that of one who 
was, by virtue of his courage and fidelity, the hero of 
Old Hadley. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CHURCH IN OLD HADLEY 

I. The Pastorate of Rev. Isaac Chauncey 

The bell procured in 1690 by Goodman Partrigg 
rang out a clamorous peal at early dawn the 16th of 
October, 1695, and soon the voters of Hadley were 
wending their way to the little meeting-house on the 
hill. The forests were resplendent in gay autumnal 
garb, but the town fathers, intent on business vital to 
the welfare of the community, had no time to note 
the beauties of nature. With guns in hand, they took 
their seats in the dilapidated sanctuary, and there, in 
town-meeting assembled, voted : " That we doe ernestly 
desire ye Rev. Mr. Isack Chancy that he would be 
pleased to settle amongst us to be our minister. " 

Immediately after Parson Russell's death, two " mes- 
sengers" had been appointed to secure a pastor, but 
the candidates discovered, Samuel Moody and Simon 
Bradstreet, though acceptable in the pulpit, each re- 
quired as salary more corn, wheat, and peas than the 
people could afford to pay. At last, July, 1695, Rev. 
Isaac Chauncey, son of Parson Israel Chauncey of 




The Russell Church. Erected in 1808 



The Church in Old Hadley 41 

Stratford, and grandson of Rev. Charles Chauncey, the 
august president of Harvard College, was engaged as 
a supply, and the hearts of his hearers were taken by 
storm. In their cautious and dignified manner they 
proceeded to make overtures to this bright young 
preacher, and were rejoiced when he accepted their 
call, on terms with which they could comply. The 
parish bought of Samuel, the son of Parson Russell, 
the home of their first minister for ,£120, and spent 
£20 on repairs and improvements. They offered Mr. 
Chauncey the home lot and buildings, twenty acres 
of meadow land, a salary of £70 a year in " provision 
pay," for three years, and afterwards £80 annually 
and his firewood. After his ordination the new pastor 
betook himself straightway to some unknown place 
for Sarah, his bride, and the newly married pair set 
themselves bravely at work to do their utmost in the 
parish to which the Lord had called them. The en- 
thusiastic utterance of a youth but twenty-five years 
old, and fresh from Harvard College, must have caused 
some agitation among the grave and reverend fathers 
in his congregation, but their minds were so much 
perturbed by alarms from without that they had no 
inclination to quarrel with their minister, who soon 
was to be called upon for sympathy and consolation 
in an hour of urgent need. 

A party of Indians from Albany, encamped above 
Hatfield, though supposed to be friendly, were the 



42 Historic Hadley 

cause of much anxiety to the elders in the community, 
who, remembering the days of old, felt their presence 
to be a menace. Another typical October morning 
dawned in the lovely valley. Richard Church, the 
Hadley tailor, and grandson of Richard the first settler, 
accompanied by Samuel Barnard and Ebenezer Smith, 
went hunting in the eastern woods. Toward night 
two badly frightened boys rushed into the broad street, 
with news that after leaving their companion they 
had heard gun shots, accompanied by savage yells, 
away in the depths of the forest. Then there was 
gathering of forces from three neighboring towns, and 
hurried departure through the evening shadows, and 
noiseless searching among rocks and underbrush 
and fallen trunks of trees, until, almost at daybreak, 
the seekers found the object of their quest. Trans- 
fixed by arrows and mutilated by bullets, with scalp 
torn away and clothing destroyed, the body of Richard 
Church was tenderly carried to the home where waited 
his poor young bride, Sarah Bartlett, and his mother, 
Widow Mary Church. 

Determined that the murderers should be punished, 
the friends and neighbors of the hapless young man 
started in hot pursuit, and having had long years of 
training in the ways of savage warriors, beat the red 
miscreants at their own game. The guilty Indians 
were discovered deep hidden in a cave on the west 
end of Mount Toby, and were " haled " not too gently 



The Church in Old Hadley 43 

to Northampton, loaded with irons hastily constructed 
by the village blacksmith, and, as there was no prison, 
were confined in a private house with a grim constable 
as their jailer. John Pynchon, Samuel Partrigg, 
Joseph Hawley, and Aaron Cooke, "Esquires," and 
Joseph Parsons, "Gentleman," were especially com- 
missioned to hold a court of Oyer and Terminer, 
October 21, 1696, for the trial of these cases, and 
Sheriff Samuel Porter of Hadley took care that the 
criminals were produced before the judges. Other 
Indians, frightened at the determination of the settlers, 
turned state's evidence and the prisoners were speedily 
convicted and sentenced to be shot to death. Their 
execution in Northampton was witnessed by an im- 
mense crowd from all the country round. This was 
the first instance of capital punishment in Hampshire 
County. Thus with a tragedy among his people was 
inaugurated the pastorate of Rev. Isaac Chauncey, 
and one of the first duties of that opening year must 
have been to extend the consolations of religion to the 
widowed bride and bereaved mother of Richard Church. 
Mr. Chauncey came to Hadley just in time to settle 
the controversy about the dignity of the seats in the 
meeting-house gallery. It was voted that "Ye first 
seat in ye front gallerye is look to be eaquall with ye 
second seat in the body of ye meeting-house, and that 
ye west end of ye side gallerye to be eaquall with ye 
third seat in ye body of ye meeting-house." The 



44 Historic Hadley 

building itself, having been used as a fort and place of 
refuge for so many years, was in a dilapidated condi- 
tion, but war time was not a propitious season in 
which to build a new one. At last the peace of 
Utrecht ended the long struggle, and the citizens 
thanked God and took courage. 

Now came a busy time for Hadley. Her people, 
cooped up so long behind the fortifications, tore down 
the stockades, planted new fields, mended the fences, 
repaired their dwellings, and resumed the business 
of peaceful every-day life. The work of collecting tur- 
pentine from pine trees and shipping it to Hartford, 
though very profitable, had to be restricted lest all the 
pines remaining be permanently injured. The town 
gave Deacon Smith and Lieutenant Nash permission 
to get turpentine from the trees on Spruce Hill, the 
quantity not to exceed one thousand boxes. The tur- 
pentine was often exchanged for rum, as minister and 
deacons and all the church members drank liquor as 
regularly as they ate their daily bread, and the licensed 
innkeepers, Hezekiah Dickinson and Joseph Smith, 
could not buy or make enough to supply their guests. 
Sometimes men were allowed to sell rum in their own 
homes, as in the case of Richard Goodman, who was 
a "retailer" before he kept the ferry. Philip Smith 
was permitted to sell to those "in real need," and 
Samuel Partrigg to sell to the "neighbors." Andrew 
Warner was a "Maltster," and Samuel Porter had a 



The Church in Old Hadley 45 

"still and worm," and doubtless both ministered to 
these " real needs " of neighbors far and near. Orange 
Warner was the last maltster of Hadley. But alto- 
gether the people could not manufacture enough of 
any kind of drink to satisfy the demand, so aqua vitse 
was imported, and rum was brought in hogsheads and 
sold in small amounts to those inveterate drinkers, 
who seldom became drunken. 

Visitors to the valley, after its people had repaired 
the ruin wrought by the Indian wars, saw perched 
upon Hadley hill a fine new meeting-house, modern 
in style as became the temple in which a progressive 
people worshiped the Lord. The little old first edifice 
was falling in pieces when, in 1713, another important 
town-meeting was held, over which Samuel Porter 
presided as moderator. Here the people voted "That 
we will build a new Metting Hous" and "That the 
Meting house that we have agreed to build shall be 
40 foot in length and 40 foot in breadth, with a flattish 
roof and a Bellcony on one end of said house." The 
committee, Samuel Porter, " Left." Nehemiah Dickin- 
son, "Sargt." Daniel Marsh, Peter Montague, and 
Samuel Barnard, were instructed to buy glass, nails, 
"clabbords," and shingles, and to hire workmen, "im- 
proving our own inhabitants as conveniently as may 
be." 

The second meeting-house was finished in 1714, 
and stood for ninety-five years. The "flattish roof" 



46 Historic Hadley 

would now be considered steep. The "bellcony," 
built up from the ground, was the first steeple in 
Hampshire County. The bell tower was probably not 
at once completed, the committee finding it necessary 
to get the frame raised and covered and plastered, and 
to set the "joyners" windows firmly in their places, 
before spending time and money on what was purely 
ornamental. The beams overhead were hidden by 
plastering, but the posts and braces were painted and 
left in sight. When the building was almost finished 
"Captain Aaron Cooke, Esq,, Ensign Chileab Smith, 
Mr. Samuel Porter, Esq., Jonathan Marsh, Deac. 
Nathaniel White and Deac. John Smith" put their 
wise heads together in a vain endeavor to seat the new 
meeting-house in a manner more acceptable to the 
aristocracy than had been the arrangement in the old 
one. In 1717 more pews were built, the gallery and 
desk were painted, "pentices" were placed over the 
doors, and efforts were made to keep the rain from 
spoiling the plastering by beating under the eaves. 
After a time Eleazer Porter, son of Samuel, the first 
settler, replaced the simple pulpit and sounding-board 
with new ones more elegant than those in Northampton 
or Hatfield, and also presented a handsome new desk 
for the minister's use. The children gazed with 
wonder on the elaborate wooden canopy which seemed 
to project in air with no visible support above the 
parson's head, and threatened to come down with a 



The Church in Old Hadley 47 

crash when in tremendous tones the reverend speaker 
thundered forth the terrors of the law. Their fears 
were not without reason, for, although through all these 
theological thunderings the sounding-board remained 
firm, yet the little diamond-shaped panes of glass did 
become loosened from the leads which held them and 
were replaced in a firmer fashion with " square glass " 
of a later style. Square pews built by individuals, and 
considered much more respectable than narrow slips, 
took the place of the old-fashioned long seats. Eleazer 
Porter owned a square pew, and other well-to-do 
people built similar ones, with supports fastened to the 
floor, so there could be no clattering, such as was heard 
in many churches when children moved about. 

Seating the meeting-house continued to produce hot 
contentions, as the selectmen were obliged to regard 
"age, estate," and many sorts of "qualifications." 
Heads of families sat in their pews in the body of the 
house, and females in the gallery on the right, while 
the males were on the left. After 1772 the front seats 
in the side galleries were reserved for singers. Little 
children on low benches in the aisles were ever con- 
scious of the keen old eyes watching them from the 
gallery where the tithing man was on the lookout for 
offenders. At any appearance of levity, with a sharp 
rap on the top of the seat his official staff would be 
pointed directly at the unlucky wight, who, conscious 
of the reproving gaze of the whole congregation, wished 



48 Historic Hadley 

that the floor might open and swallow him up. Before 
the pulpit, opposite the broad aisle, sat the deacons in 
a solemn row. On the top of the partition next the 
aisle was balanced the christening basin, and here the 
minister performed the rite of baptism, often on infants 
but twenty-four hours old. A leaf which hung near by, 
when raised, was covered with a white cloth, and upon 
the table thus made were placed the bread and wine 
for the communion service. Among the communicants 
in an upper region were certain chattels with black 
faces, the property of their brethren in the Lord. 

We should imagine that those old Puritan fathers 
would have regarded with scorn any attempt to enslave 
a weaker race, as contrary to those principles on which 
their very faith was founded. But our heroic ancestors 
were human and therefore inconsistent. They always 
had an eye for business ventures which promised gain, 
and settled the matter with their consciences as best 
they could. For more than one hundred years slavery 
existed in the valley towns and the masters and mis- 
tresses were among the most respected of their citizens. 
Joshua Boston, chattel, a consistent member of the 
Hadley church, with dignified carriage and gentlemanly 
manners, was an important member of the family of 
Eleazer Porter. His ability to read and write enabled 
him to become well posted in the news of the day, so 
that, although a slave, he was glad to fight for the 
cause of liberty in the Revolution. We may well 



The Church in Old Hadley 49 

believe that at his death his master felt that he had 
lost property worth =£20, at which old Joshua was 
valued. Joshua's funeral was attended by many 
friends, who mourned him for his worth, irrespective 
of the color of his skin. During a period of six years 
thirteen negroes died in Hadley and were buried in 
the old cemetery. The funerals of these servants were 
" improved " by the ministers as occasions upon which 
it was proper to defend the institution of slavery and 
endeavor to reconcile the slave to his bonds. Whipping 
was the customary punishment for common offenses, 
yet in those days when stocks and whipping-post and 
ducking-stool were in active operation for white crimi- 
nals, this penalty may not have been excessive. The 
Hadley slaves were treated much like children, and 
were not subjected to more severe discipline than were 
the sons and daughters of their owners. 

Parson Isaac Chauncey was a conscientious man. 
He preached long sermons in which were clearly por- 
trayed the principles of right and justice, yet, like his 
predecessor, he was a slaveholder and saw no harm 
in following a practice which he believed was taught 
in the Old Testament scriptures. His helpmeet, 
Sarah, died when thirty-eight years old, leaving ten 
children. The father of this family was also the 
master of Arthur Prutt, Joan, his wife, and their 
dusky brood of seven, named respectively, George, 
Elenor, Ishmael, Csesar, Abner, Zebulon, and Chloe. 



50 Historic Hadley 

The fact that Arthur had a surname indicates that he 
may have been bought from another rather than im- 
ported directly from the African coast. It must have 
been difficult for the minister to fill so many hungry 
mouths on the pittance paid for his services, and a 
Southern planter would have sold some of these young 
darkies, but we find no proof that this was ever done. 
It is very probable that each of the parson's daughters, 
Mrs. John Graham, of Southbury, Conn., Mrs. 
Grindal Rawson, of South Hadley, Mrs. Daniel Russell, 
of Rocky Hill, Conn., and Mrs. Hobart Estabrook, of 
East Haddam, received a slave when she was married 
to the minister of her choice, and thus the negro 
family was kept within bounds. George, the son of 
Arthur Prutt, died in Whately. The parson's son, 
Richard Chauncey, brought a slave to the East Pre- 
cinct, afterwards Amherst, and Josiah Chauncey, a 
prominent resident of the same town, was the master 
of Caesar Prutt. 

The Chauncey brothers were violent Tories, and 
Caesar, the slave, not sympathizing with their senti- 
ments, must have run away, for when Captain Reuben 
Dickinson raised his famous company at the time of 
the Lexington alarm, the bondman Caesar stood side 
by side with other Amherst residents, and did his 
duty with the rest. The patriotic slave of a Tory 
master, knowing the bitterness of servitude, was eager 
to fight for freedom. Years passed. Josiah Chauncey 



The Church in Old Hadley 51 

and his wife left Amherst, and died in Schenectady, 
New York. The Revolutionary veterans were awarded 
pensions, but nothing is heard of Caesar Prutt. At 
last, when in April, 1801, Amherst held its annual 
town-meeting in the old church on the hill, the clerk 
recorded the following: "Voted, that Caesar Prutt, a 
Town Pauper, be Set up at Vendue to the lowest 
bidder for Vitualling and Beding, and was Struck off 
to Asa Smith for one year for One Dollar Per week." 
Alas for Caesar! We can imagine the decrepit old 
Revolutionary hero, with black face and snowy wool 
and trembling, knotted hands, standing before his 
fellow townsmen, as they auction him off for one 
dollar per week. Asa Smith, tired of his undertaking, 
passed his charge along to Samuel Hastings, and thus 
the sorry tale goes on. Each year, more feeble and 
infirm, old Caesar is brought to the town-meeting and 
sold to the lowest bidder. Suddenly, in 1806, the 
record ends, and probably the life went out as a candle 
is extinguished, leaving but little trace behind. In 
some unknown corner of West Cemetery in Amherst 
the wornout body was laid away, and his very name 
was forgotten. 

The name of Zebulon, the youngest son of Arthur 
Prutt, will forever be connected with the history of 
the ancient bird that perches on the Hadley meeting- 
house steeple. When the belfry, rising almost one 
hundred feet in air, with pillars and fretwork, was com- 



52 Historic Hadley 

plete, the weather-cock, which for more than one hun- 
dred and fifty years has creaked round and round 
above the broad street, was placed in its lofty position. 
This glittering fowl, brought over from England, and 
almost as large as a sheep, was so attractive to the 
young darky, Zeb Prutt, that he climbed the spire 
and sitting on the rooster's back crowed in a manner 
worthy of the biped he bestrode. The gay and frisky 
Zeb, who seemed to be not cast down by the fact of 
his servitude, afterward became the property of Oliver 
Warner of Amherst. 

During the pastorate of Parson Chauncey the people 
of Hadley discovered that the great useless mountain 
in their midst might be of some practical value. There- 
fore the town voted to fence in the north side of " Mount 
holioke" for a cow and sheep pasture. One tenth of 
the old township of Hadley was, in their opinion, 
wasted in this mountain, which was simply an obstacle 
in their way. The Indians had taken refuge in its 
thickets, cattle had fallen over its precipices, and 
altogether it was an undesirable possession, separating 
the citizens from their children who had persisted in 
leaving the old home for the untried lands beyond. 
In 1727 twenty-one of the southern settlers, because 
they were "8 miles from the place of public worship 
and the way was mountainous and bad," petitioned to 
be made into a precinct, now South Hadley. Thus 
the Hadley church gained a second daughter, but 



The Church in Old Hadley 53 

lost some valuable supporters. Very soon the " East 
Inhabitants beyond the Pine Plain" demanded that 
they also should be "set off," and soon the East 
Precinct, afterwards Amherst, in its own meeting- 
house was listening to long sermons by the Rev. 
David Parsons. 

Parson Chauncey, although concealing no regi- 
cides within his home, had still an ever present 
grief in the misfortune which had befallen his dearly 
beloved eldest son Israel. This brilliant young theo- 
logue, a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1724, after 
teaching in the academy at Hadley, and preaching in 
Northampton and Housatonic, was sought by the 
church in Norwalk, Conn., for its vacant pulpit. 
Suddenly his career was cut short by an attack of 
violent dementia, brought on by excessive study. With 
no asylum for a refuge, the "distracted young man" 
was confined in a small outhouse in his father's yard, 
and his midnight shriekings of "fire" passed unnoticed 
as the ravings of a maniac. Alas, there came a night 
when the alarm was all too true, and the poor lunatic 
cried in vain until his room was wrapped in flames 
which were discovered too late to save his life. 

Before the death of his son the Hadley minister had 
been in great demand for services outside the town. 
In Sunderland, at the ordination of Rev. William 
Rand, and at the funeral of Rev. John Williams of 
Deerfield, he spoke acceptable words of counsel and 



54 Historic Hadley 

sympathy, and when the Rev. Robert Breck of Spring- 
field, pronounced to be a heretic by one company of 
Hampshire County ministers, was finally admitted by 
a second and more liberal council, Mr. Chauncey 
preached the ordination sermon and gave the charge. 
The tragedy in his home brought on physical ailments 
which made it necessary for him to have assistance in 
the pulpit, and he preached but little after 1738, 
although he lived until 1745. October 16, 1740, George 
Whitefield, the English evangelist, who by the sober 
citizens of Hatfield was refused admission to their 
pulpit, preached in the Hadley meeting-house and, 
waxing fervent in his speech, thundered so loud that 
his voice was heard across the river. 

II. The Pastorates of Rev. Chester Williams and 
Dr. Samuel Hopkins 

Rev. Chester Williams was ordained pastor in Had- 
ley, January 21, 1741, and when good Parson Chauncey 
passed peacefully to his reward, his brisk young col- 
league, already in the harness, took full charge of 
pulpit and parish. This new minister, the son of 
Rev. Ebenezer Williams of Pomfret, Conn., was grad- 
uated at Yale in 1735, and soon after his settlement 
married Sarah, the daughter of Hon. Eleazer Porter, 
a wealthy and influential citizen of Hadley. The 
village, no longer a fortified town, was now a thriving 
rural hamlet. The twenty-one highways, laid out in 



The Church in Old Hadley 55 

1722 by Samuel and Experience Porter and Lieutenant 
John Smith, had been improved and widened, and 
cleared from stones and stumps. Joseph Kellogg, a 
son of Lieutenant Joseph, kept the ferry at the Aqua 
Vitse Meadow. Westwood and Noah Cooke, Ichabod 
Smith, Joseph Hubbard, Samuel Dickinson, James 
Goodman, Ezekiel Kellogg, and Benjamin Church, 
all grandsons of the first settlers, dwelt either in the 
old homesteads or had built houses for themselves on 
the broad street. The Marsh family was represented 
by the aged brothers, Ebenezer and Job, grandsons of 
John, the pioneer, and their descendants. Captain 
Job Marsh had built in 1715 a house on land given by 
the town to his father, Daniel, which is the site of the 
present meeting-house and town hall. Valiant Cap- 
tain Moses Marsh, his son, fought in the Louisburg 
campaign, and after the war settled in his native town 
and became a most useful and public-spirited citizen. 
Moses Cooke, the son of Aaron, and possibly others 
of his generation, were in 1745 still living, and could 
relate stirring tales of their youthful days when Hadley 
was besieged like a citadel of old. For the most part 
the town was a settlement of farmers, and fighting was 
a well-nigh forgotten art. Lieutenant Noah Cooke 
was making rope from hemp raised on his land, and 
Oliver Warner, the hatter, was supplying his neighbors 
with headgear of the latest style. Some articles of 
luxury had been introduced, and the aristocrats were 



56 Historic Hadley 

carrying gold and silver watches, and warming their 
feet by means of wooden stoves lined with tin made 
by Eliakim Smith and Samuel Gaylord. Moses 
Porter had imported a "chair" in which he drove 
about, and Parson Williams, dressed in the height of 
fashion, was a conspicuous figure as, mounted on the 
most valuable saddle horse in the county, he rode up 
and down the street making his pastoral calls. His 
wardrobe included one cloak, one gown, two great- 
coats, six coats, six waistcoats, five pairs of breeches, 
seven shirts, six neckcloths, three cotton handkerchiefs, 
three bands, five stocks, seventeen pairs of stockings, 
and smaller articles too many to enumerate. Silver 
shoe, knee, and stock buckles, gold sleeve buttons and 
rings, a silver tankard and snuffbox, were also num- 
bered among his possessions. When we realize that 
nine years of married life brought to his home six 
children we do not wonder that Phillis, a negro slave, 
was needed in the parson's kitchen. 

At this time Jonathan Edwards was preaching in 
Northampton and all the churches were involved in 
the controversy regarding the necessary qualifications 
for communion. A majority of the ministers in the 
county disagreed with Mr. Edwards' teaching that the 
Lord's supper was not a converting ordinance. Rev. 
Chester Williams, the Hadley minister, was the scribe 
of that memorable council, by which the greatest 
preacher of New England was sent away in disgrace, 



The Church in Old Hadley 57 

and Parson Williams, together with Enos Nash, the 
Hadley delegate, voted for his dismission. Three 
years after this occurred Mr. Williams was seized with 
a sudden and fatal illness, and again the Hadley 
church was without a pastor. 

Some mysterious attraction about this time drew 
the attention of a young Yale graduate toward Hadley. 
He was the nephew of Jonathan Edwards, and no 
doubt had often in his visits to the broad street crossed 
the river and viewed the pleasant meadows near at 
hand. But something beside scenery must have caused 
him to become a "probationer" in the Hadley pulpit. 
After preaching for six Sabbaths he accepted the 
church's loud and urgent call to settle in the parish. 
A special fast-day was appointed to prepare for the 
ordination, and then, February 26, 1755, the ceremony 
took place and Rev. Samuel Hopkins became the fourth 
minister of Hadley. His father, Rev. Samuel Hopkins 
of West Springfield, preached the sermon, and Rev. 
Stephen Williams of Longmeadow gave the charge. 
From church to parsonage was only a short journey, 
and it seemed supremely fitting that the new minister 
in caring for his flock should pay especial attention to 
the family of his predecessor. The sudden attraction 
for Hadley may be explained by the fact that, as soon 
as decorum would allow, Rev. Samuel Hopkins married 
Mrs. Sarah Williams, widow of the late pastor, and 
thus at twenty-six became the step-father of six small 



58 Historic Hadley 

children, the possessor of many changes of raiment, 
the owner of a handsome library, and the master of a 
comfortable and well appointed home. 

According to the diary kept by Madam Porter, the 
mother of Mrs. Hopkins, this year, November 18, 1755, 
"an awful earthquake" shook the ground beneath 
their feet and alarmed the inhabitants of the whole 
county, to whom such a phenomenon presaged dis- 
aster. But no immediate effects were felt, for although 
other Hampshire towns had suffered from Indian 
depredations, yet, since the treaty of Utrecht, Hadley 
had been unmolested. Encouraged by continued peace, 
the people had ventured to settle in the outskirts of 
the town. Two miles to the north, in a sheltered 
intervale known as Forty Acre Meadow, Moses Porter, 
great-grandson of Samuel, the first settler, had built in 
1752 a commodious dwelling, and installed therein his 
bride, Mistress Elizabeth Pitkin, granddaughter of 
Phebe, the third wife of Parson Russell. Hardly had 
the master of this home welcomed the new minister 
within its hospitable portals, when military duty called 
Captain Porter to take command of his company and 
march to Albany, there to join the regiment of Colonel 
Williams in its ill-fated expedition against Crown 
Point on Lake Champlain. Enos Smith, a small 
Hadley lad, noted with wondering eyes the gorgeous 
uniform of the sad-faced soldier, who, obeying duty's 
call, left his heart behind with his unprotected wife 



The Church in Old Hadley 59 

and little daughter Elizabeth in the pleasant home 
which he was to see no more. Far away from all 
neighbors, Mistress Porter looked well after her house- 
hold and kept a brave heart through the long and 
lonely summer. At last the swift express from the 
north reached Hadley, and her dread was turned to 
certain knowledge when she learned that six days 
before September 8, her brave husband had fallen 
in the battle of Lake George, and that his body, 
stripped of its martial trappings, had been left to the 
mercy of his foes, only his sword being secured for his 
family All Hadley mourned for the intrepid captain 
and sympathized with his widow, left alone to care for 
her young daughter and to manage her large estate. 

But trials had to be endured in those old days, 
and Hadley women were too busy to indulge in nervous 
prostration. Madam Porter with sorrowful face went 
about her daily tasks, and for forty years was faithful 
to her husband's memory. Her little Elizabeth, May 
13 1770 was "published" to Mr. Charles Phelps, a 
young Northampton lawyer, and June 14 the wedding 
took place. Her son-in-law relieved Madam Porter of 
her many cares, built the gambrel roof above the old 
house as we see it to-day, and added to the farm unti 
it included six hundred acres. His daughter, the third 
Elizabeth, married Rev. Dan Huntington, and his 
crandson, Frederic Dan, was the late beloved Bishop 
of Central New York. Madam Porter lived to be 



60 Historic Had ley 

seventy-eight years old. Her body was carried from 
her old home to the riverside, placed in a boat, taken 
down the stream, and buried in the cemetery beside 
the headstone which stands as a memorial to her 
husband, Captain Moses Porter, a hero of Old Hadley. 

Rev. Samuel Hopkins, the minister in Hadley during 
all the years of Madam Porter's widowhood, stands 
out from history's page a unique and interesting per- 
sonality, quite different from the typical New England 
parson of the olden time. We see him in his home, 
expending his salary of two hundred and twenty-two 
dollars so prudently that his nine children and six 
step-children were fed and clothed, strangers were 
entertained, and a little was laid by for time of need. 
We follow him as, attired in long-tailed coat, knee 
breeches, a vest with skirts, and buckled shoes, he 
calls from house to house, and seated in the chimney 
corner puffs upon the pipe kept for his use, and makes 
himself at home. But the listener, waiting to hear 
the good divine expound the doctrine and the law, is 
sometimes disappointed when unseemly levity takes 
the place of improving conversation, for the worthy 
parson dearly loves a joke, even when the laugh is 
turned upon himself. 

One Sabbath, when dining with Governor Strong, 
he declined some pudding between services, saying 
that pudding before preaching made him dull, at which 
the Governor slyly queried, " Did you not eat pudding 



The Church in Old Hadley 61 

for breakfast?" Parson Hopkins asked an invalid if 
she would not like to have him "preach a lecture" by 
her bedside, and received the reply that she would 
indeed, as she had slept but poorly the night before, 
and his discourses were always soothing. Complaining 
that a certain man brought him "soft wood," he was 
told that he did so because the people were given 
"soft preaching." 

But though a joker for six days in the week, on 
Sunday Parson Hopkins was dignified in manner and 
of slow delivery, with so much of judicial argument 
and wisdom in his utterance that an eminent lawyer 
remarked that he would make a good judge. He often 
adapted his sermons to the discussion of special events. 
The "awful earthquake" called forth two discourses, 
and a cheerful New Year's sermon, January 1, 1764, 
declared, "This year thou shalt die." His five sons- 
in-law, Rev. Samuel Spring, Rev. Samuel Austin, Rev. 
William Riddel, Rev. Leonard Worcester, and Rev. 
Nathaniel Emmons, often visited Hadley, and preached 
in the old church, and sometimes the Hadley pastor 
exchanged with Mr. Hooker of Northampton, and 
with Mr. Parsons of Amherst. 

When the parson, his wife, her aged mother, and 
twelve children were crowded beneath the ministerial 
roof-tree, a sudden misfortune befell the household. 
The winds, how T ling over the western hills and sweeping 
across the Hadley meadows, blew a tiny flicker into 



62 Historic Hadley 

flame, and at one o'clock in the morning, March 21, 
1766, a blaze shot into air which illuminated the country 
for miles around. Regardless of sermons or silver, 
the parson hustled his children half naked through the 
windows, and rushing after them with his little two- 
weeks-old Polly hugged close to his breast, assured 
himself that all were safe, and then exclaimed to the 
raging flames, "Now burn and welcome!" Fortu- 
nately Madam Porter saved her almanac, and in it 
recorded these facts for our information. She also 
tells us that in eleven days a new frame was raised, 
and that on November 24 the family moved into the 
rebuilt dwelling. 

The years of Dr. Hopkins' ministry were crowded 
with events upon which hung the fate of the nation. 
The Hadley farmers were all ready for revolution, for 
they had been greatly exasperated by the King's sur- 
veyors who confiscated all trees twenty-four inches in 
diameter a foot above the ground, to be made into 
masts for the British navy. In 1765 Josiah Pierce 
recorded in his almanac, " A mob in Hadley on account 
of logs." The perpetual wrangling over seating the 
meeting-house was hushed by the call of the minute 
men to arms. Giles Crouch Kellogg, Phineas Lyman, 
Oliver Smith, Josiah Pierce, and Jonathan Warner 
were appointed a committee of correspondence, and 
later Ebenezer and Moses Marsh, John Cowls, Ben- 
jamin Colt, Eliakim Smith, Edmund Hubbard, War- 



The Church in Old Hadley 63 

ham Smith, and Noah Cooke were added to this 
committee. In 1774 Josiah Pierce was sent as Hadley's 
delegate to the first Provincial Congress. A powder 
house eight feet square was built in the middle lane 
and in it was stored four and a half barrels of powder. 
Noah Smith and Warham Smith were sent to Williams- 
town to get the " great gun that used to belong to the 
town." On April 29, 1775, at nine o'clock in the 
morning, news of the battle of Lexington reached 
Hadley, and at one o'clock fifty volunteers started 
toward Boston. A committee was appointed to make 
saltpetre, and Moses Marsh " took the saltpetre oath." 
Hon. Samuel Porter, son of Samuel the first settler, 
and a very wealthy man, died in 1722 leaving an estate 
of ten thousand dollars. His grandson, Hon. Eleazer 
Porter, justice of the peace and judge of probate, and 
Elisha Porter, sheriff of Hampshire County, lived 
during the Revolution in handsome houses side by 
side, built probably by their grandfather on land 
granted to their great-grandfather by the town. They 
were the sons of Eleazer, who married Sarah Pitkin 
and died when fifty-nine years old. 

The Hon. Eleazer Porter married for his second 
wife, Susanna, daughter of Rev. Jonathan Edwards. 
Her word, handed down through her descendants, 
proves the house in which she lived to have been 
built in 1713, and therefore that it is the oldest house 
in town. The visitor to-day gazes with interest on 



64 Historic Hadley 

the quaint exterior with projecting second story, ex- 
amines the handsome scroll over the double front door, 
and then walks into the narrow hall and up the winding 
stairs, where low but sunny chambers open out on 
either hand, and a steep staircase leads to a dark and 
dismal attic. There we see hewn timbers, some of 
which were taken from the old house built by Samuel 
Porter, the first settler, and thus a portion of this 
ancient mansion dates back to those old days when 
the town was born. Below, at the right of the narrow 
hall, and lighted by three windows, with deep window 
seats, and paneled woodwork, and fireplace six feet 
wide, and handsome corner cupboard, is the room 
formerly used as a court room. Across the hall is 
another apartment of the same size, and in each 
ceiling massive roof-trees a foot square give ample 
support to the floor above. After the Hon. Eleazer 
Porter died, this house was the home of his son, 
Jonathan Edwards Porter, and others of his race and 
name have followed until in later years it passed out 
of the family. 

Colonel Elisha Porter, the proprietor of the other 
Porter house, which was built one year later, received 
orders January, 1776, to proceed with his regiment to 
Quebec. Such a journey in the depth of winter re- 
quired much courage, but was accomplished safely, 
and the Colonel returned in time to witness the sur- 
render of Burgoyne at the battle of Saratoga, and to 



The Church in Old Hadley 65 

make the acquaintance of that hapless officer and 
gentleman. Colonel Porter then found it necessary to 
come home to attend to his duties as high sheriff. 
Soon there was business at Joseph Kellogg's ferry, 
where a straggling army of Hessian mercenaries, pris- 
oners of war, waited to be set over the river. Hungry 
and weary, the rank and file of Burgoyne's army were 
thankful to rest beside the stream, and Colonel Porter, 
moved by sympathy for the defeated general, well-nigh 
helpless with illness, extended to him the hospitality of 
his own home, and allowed his bodyguard to encamp 
within the dooryard. The round eyes of the six 
Porter children stared with astonishment at the gay 
uniforms and gorgeous trappings brought so sud- 
denly to their very door, and Puritanical ears were 
horrified at the careless speech of those disgusted 
British soldiers. 

The English general found the quiet Hadley home a 
very haven of rest, and his natural foes converted into 
kindly hosts, by whose ministrations his strength was 
restored, and he was able to resume his journey. In 
taking leave, Burgoyne presented to Colonel Porter the 
dress sword which he had surrendered and received 
again at Saratoga. This invaluable relic was left by 
its owner to his son Samuel and from him descended 
to his daughter Pamela, who married Dudley Smith. 
Their son Samuel Smith, and daughter, Miss Lucy 
Smith, now own the sword of Burgoyne, a three-edged 



66 Historic Hadley 

rapier, with embossed silver handle and filigreed guard. 
The visitor examining the sword is interested to de- 
cipher on the blade near the handle the monogram 
G. R., while on the other side appears the coat of arms 
with the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." The 
owners of the sword live in a house built on the site of 
the old dwelling, which was moved to the rear, where 
a part of it is still standing. 

This passing of Burgoyne through Hadley was the 
only occasion during the war when the British were in 
the Connecticut Valley. Hadley soldiers were always 
in the field, and during their absence the town cared 
for their families. Large bounties were offered to 
volunteers, and horses, blankets, and clothing were, 
through many sacrifices on the part of the citizens, 
provided for their use. It was even necessary to " sell 
the Great Gun at vendue" to raise money to help 
carry on the war. No complete list has been preserved 
of those who represented Hadley in the Revolution, 
but we know that Captain Oliver Smith, Captain 
Moses Marsh, Nehemiah Gaylord, and his son Nehe- 
miah, Josiah Nash, Daniel Bartlett, Ebenezer Pome- 
roy, Jr., Seymour Kelsey, Francis Traynor, Ichabod 
Nye, Medad Noble, and Timothy Smith were in active 
service. In the midst of the war Hadley was threatened 
with an epidemic of smallpox brought by soldiers re- 
turning from the northern campaign. Much preju- 
dice was felt by the ignorant against inoculation, 



The Church in Old Hadley 67 

but finally it was decided that it was a necessary 
measure, and one Sunday morning fifteen patients 
submitted to the operation in the home of Moses 
Marsh, to the great scandal of many who felt that by 
so doing the Sabbath was needlessly broken. 

The meeting-house had been reshingled, the bell 
recast and made heavier, and general repairs com- 
pleted, when peaceful Hadley was invaded by another 
army, pursuing Daniel Shays and his adherents of 
rebellion fame. The snow was piled in drifts, and the 
roads almost impassable, when General Lincoln and 
his three thousand soldiers made their camp one 
memorable Sunday morning, January 13, 1787, on the 
broad street. Cannon were stationed north of the 
meeting-house, and preparations were made by which 
to keep the Sabbath after the good old fashion. Dr. 
Hopkins being in feeble health, a messenger was sent 
to Hatfield for Dr. Lyman, and there behind a pulpit 
built of snow, with the three thousand soldiers as his 
congregation, the eloquent divine exhorted, preached, 
and prayed. The shades of the regicides who lived 
and died in Parson Russell's house across the way 
may well have graced with their unseen presence this 
unique Sunday service. 

And now, with all rebellions quelled, the time for a 
new meeting-house seemed to be at hand. Lieutenant 
Enos Smith, General Samuel Porter, Charles Phelps, 
Nathaniel White, Captain Daniel White, Captain Elisha 



68 Historic Hadley 

Dickinson, Lieutenant Caleb Smith, Israel Lyman, 
Josiah Nash, Major Moses Porter, Lemuel Warren, 
Windsor Smith, and Percy Smith were chosen a gen- 
eral committee. Plans were selected, and November 3, 
1806, it was voted that a meeting-house should be 
built near the site of the old one at the cost of seven 
thousand dollars, the money to be raised by selling 
pews, and by a rate upon the town. November 17 a 
majority of three decided to build the meeting-house 
on the Back Street. The vote was then reconsidered 
and referred to an "indifferent committee." Charles 
Phelps, Samuel Porter, Caleb Smith, and Captain 
Elisha Dickinson were placed in charge of the finances 
of the undertaking. 

One thing the people had determined, and that was 
that there should be no room under the new meeting- 
house for geese, or sheep, or mischievous boys. The 
Hadley geese had multiplied until almost every family 
owned a flock, and these ran the streets, huddling at 
night in front of their owners' houses, and on sunny 
days crowding under the meeting-house and making 
such a racket that the effect of the most eloquent 
preaching was entirely destroyed. The building com- 
mittee, Charles Phelps, Lieutenant Caleb Smith, and 
General Samuel Porter, was doubtless instructed as to 
this point and obeyed orders. 

The final vote that the meeting-house should stand 
near the old one, and that it should be placed east and 



The Church in Old Hadley 69 

west, with the steeple at the east, prevailed, and the 
committee proceeded with its task. Two years later, 
in 1808, the edifice standing to-day was completed, 
and on its spire was mounted the historic weather-cock, 
now freshened and made smart by a new coat of 
gilding. The old building was sold and moved away, 
and November 8, 1808, the new meeting-house was 
dedicated. A new bell was bought at the cost of two 
hundred dollars. The pews were sold, parts of the 
north gallery being reserved by the town for the use 
of males, and parts of the south for females. " Black 
males " were allowed to sit in the " north arched pew " 
and "Black females" in the "south arched pew." No 
hats were to be hung in the building, and stringent 
rules for behavior were made and posted by the select- 
men. The cost of the meeting-house was $8,413 and 
the sale of seventy-eight pews brought in $7,031. 
Colonel Elijah Dickinson, Major Moses Porter, and 
Captain John Hopkins were appointed to borrow on 
the credit of the town enough money to complete the 
payment for the building. 

III. Rev. John Woodbridge and His Successors 

Rev. Samuel Hopkins, now aged and infirm, was no 
longer able to write and deliver those long and learned 
sermons, so the committee requested him to relinquish 
a part of his salary, and in 1810 engaged Rev. John 
Woodbridge for $500 a year as long as Dr. Hopkins 



70 Historic Hadley 

lived, together with fifteen cords of wood while he 
remained single, and thirty cords after he should 
marry. But the venerable pastor's work was almost 
done, and soon a great company from all the country 
round assembled in the meeting-house to pay the last 
tribute of respect to his memory. Dr. Joseph Lyman 
preached his funeral sermon, and his people escorted 
his body to the grave. Four ministers, Lyman of 
Hatfield, Wells of Whately, Williams of Northampton, 
and Parsons of Amherst, with Governor Strong and 
Deacon Ebenezer Hunt of Northampton, acted as 
pallbearers. Thus they buried Rev. Samuel Hopkins, 
minister in Hadley for fifty-seven years. 

President Timothy Dwight of New Haven inspected 
the new meeting-house soon after its completion, and 
described it as a " handsome structure, superior to any 
other in this country." There in the middle of the 
broad street, on the historic site occupied by its pre- 
decessor, this stately building stood during the years 
following, while imperceptibly the center of population 
moved toward the east. The west street people did 
not care to go so far to church, and so as in olden time 
"dissensions arose" which in 1840 culminated in re- 
moving the meeting-house bodily and placing it in its 
present location. The solid structure, evidently built 
after a more substantial fashion than its prede- 
cessor, showed no signs of spreading when raised 
from its foundations, but traveled along in a dignified 



The Church in Old Hadley 71 

fashion, and when it reached its destination settled 
itself to stay. 

But though the meeting-house stood firm, many 
representatives of the old settlers were in a state of 
turmoil and excitement, and felt that they could not 
worship God in the new location. The shades of 
Parson Russell and his old-time congregation cried out 
in very protest, and would not be appeased. April 1, 
1841, Jacob Smith and ninety others asked to be 
dismissed that they might form another church. Then 
came a time of councils and discussions and disagree- 
ments and disputes. The perplexed ministers, con- 
vened in a private house, suggested that the seceders 
be allowed to worship by themselves for a time, with 
the hope of reconciliation. President Humphrey of 
Amherst College went over to see what he could do, 
and advised that the disgruntled persons be dismissed, 
which was accordingly done. Then with the help of 
an ex-parte council these modern " withdrawers " or- 
ganized, July 15, 1841, at 2 p. m., the Russell church 
in Hadley, its members being eighteen men and forty- 
one women, dismissed by the First church as in good 
standing, and thirty-one others " being in good standing 
last June." The Russell meeting-house was erected 
on West Street, and its pews, built by individuals, 
are to-day the property of the descendants, so that the 
building cannot be sold, though it has long been closed 
for church purposes. We find Mr. Woodbridge, having 



72 Historic Hadley 

left the First church, preaching in the Russell church, 
and when the First church wanted Rev. Benjamin 
Martin for its minister, the council, of which Mr. 
Woodbridge was a member, refused to ordain him, 
because he was not orthodox. Another council was 
called, with Mr. Woodbridge omitted, and then the 
candidate was received. September 15, 1841, Rev. 
Warren H. Beaman was settled over the new church 
in North Hadley, the last child of the mother church, 
and then just ten years old. 

Mr. Woodbridge was succeeded by Rev. John Brown, 
and he in turn by Rev. Francis Danforth, during whose 
ministry the meeting-house was moved. Then came 
Rev. Benjamin Martin, and after him Rev. Roland 
Ayres, who was installed in the old church January 11, 
1848, where he was the faithful and efficient pastor 
for thirty-six years. In an anniversary sermon he 
states that in 1873 less than one hundred households 
were represented in the parish, with sixteen foreign 
families in the school district. To-day, in the same 
community, the foreign-born residents and their chil- 
dren form a large part of the population.; 

Yet still the old church holds its own. Rev. J. S. 
Bayne preached in its pulpit after Dr. Ayres, and 
later Rev. E. E. Keedy was in charge. Its present 
pastor, Rev. Thomas A. Emerson, a graduate of Yale 
and a newcomer to the valley, recognizes the value of 
its history and tradition, and the duty of perpetuating 



The Church in Old Hadley 73 

the memory of its founders. A band of patriotic 
women have formed themselves into the Old Hadley 
Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, with 
the avowed purpose of awakening and fostering an 
interest in the history of the town. 

In 1909 the children of Old Hadley, returning to 
celebrate its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, will 
visit its historic sanctuary. They will find it still on a 
firm foundation, undisturbed by the clang of trolley or 
whizz of automobile beneath its very shadow, holding 
its lofty steeple high above the new church of St. John 
across the way. The weather-cock creaks proudly 
round and round as in the days of old, above the airy 
fretwork of a spire famous for its beauty of construction 
and delicacy of finish. Mother of many churches 
round about, this old church is beloved of her children, 
who rejoice to tell the story of the time-honored edifice, 
and reverence the memory of the founders of the 
valley town, who, with strenuous toil, built that first 
little meeting-house on the hill. 



CHAPTER IV 

HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND ACADEMY 

The founders of Hadley were imbued with a 
love of learning second only to their reverence for 
their minister and meeting-house. Education in those 
old days meant a knowledge of Latin and Greek, and 
the object of education was to preach the word of 
God. Girls could not preach and therefore much 
schooling for them was not deemed needful, but every 
boy must go to school or his father would be brought 
up before the magistrate and punished for neglect of 
duty. Laws to this effect, made by the General Court, 
were enforced by the selectmen of each town, who, 
should the parent prove obdurate, were authorized to 
take the child from his home and place him with a 
suitable guardian. Heads of families were obliged to 
catechise their children, to bring them up to a useful 
trade, to see that they were not out late at night, and 
to watch lest boys and girls should "talk too much 
together." The selectmen were ordered to make a 
list of all the children between six and twelve years 
old, and to divide the town into districts so that not 
one truant should escape their notice. 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 75 

In 1647 a law was enacted by which every town of 
one hundred families was obliged to support a classical 
grammar school, where children should be fitted for 
college. These schools, although not free like the 
school in Boston, were yet a grievous burden to the 
smaller towns, which, after the minister had been 
provided for, found nothing left wherewith to pay a 
schoolmaster. Parents all desired that the children 
should learn to read and to write, but many felt it to 
be more necessary that they should be clothed and 
fed than that they should learn the dead languages. 
Parson Russell, being a graduate of the college at 
"Newtown," to which John Harvard left his library 
and fortune, was greatly desirous from the first that 
Hadley should have a grammar school, but there seemed 
no prospect that such a blessing could be secured. 
Nevertheless, in due time, through the legacy of 
Edward Hopkins, means were provided for the school 
so earnestly desired. 

During Parson Russell's pastorate in Wethersfield, 
Edward Hopkins, the first secretary of the Colony of 
Connecticut, and its governor, was the most prominent 
figure in its social and political life. Born in England 
in 1600, this young Puritan came to Boston in 1637, 
in company with his close friend, Theophilus Eaton, 
afterward the first and only governor of the Colony of 
New Haven. Hopkins, although in very poor health, 
found himself at once pushed to the front and called 



76 Historic Hadley 

upon to assist in the solution of problems of church 
and state. As a Commissioner of the United Colonies 
he signed in behalf of Connecticut the articles of 
confederation by which, in 1643, Massachusetts, Ply- 
mouth, Connecticut, and New Haven united under 
the name of the United Colonies of New England. 

While living quietly in Hartford, Governor Hopkins 
continued his business as a merchant, pushed his 
trading stations up the river and into the wilderness, 
and founded the trade in American cotton, and all the 
time "conflicted with bodily infirmities which held 
him for thirty years together." He married Anna 
Yale, the daughter of the second wife of Theophilus 
Eaton, the widow of David Yale, after whose grandson, 
Elihu Yale, the college was named. Mrs. Hopkins 
was a literary woman who soon became insane, as the 
record runs, "by occasion of her giving herself wholly 
to reading and writing." We read further, "Her hus- 
band being very loving and tender, was loath to grieve 
her, but he saw his error when it was too late. For if 
she had attended her household affairs and such things 
as belong to women and not gone out of her way and 
calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men 
whose minds are stronger, she had kept her wits and 
might have improved them usefully and honorably in 
the place God had set her." This sad effect upon the 
female mind of too much study furnished the wise 
men of that day with another argument against the 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 77 

education of women, and brought lasting grief to the 
too indulgent husband, already wasted by disease. 

In the midst of his career Edward Hopkins was 
suddenly called to England by the death of his brother. 
Parliamentary duties detained him in the mother 
country, his family joined him, and he died in London 
in 1657, two years before the "engagers" betook 
themselves and their convictions to the wilderness of 
Hadley. The will of Governor Hopkins, after making 
due provision for his " dear destressed wife " and other 
legacies, bequeathed the residue of his estate to The- 
ophilus Eaton, John Davenport, John Cullick, and 
William Goodwin, " in full assurance of their trust and 
faithfulness in disposing of it according to the true 
intent of me, the said Edward Hopkins, which is to 
give some encouragement in those foreign plantations 
for the breeding of hopeful youths, both at the grammar 
school and college for the public service of the country 
in future times." 

The will was made in England and "those foreign 
plantations" were the New England colonies. Mr. 
Eaton died soon after the will was made, as did also 
Captain Cullick, so that the disposition of the estate fell 
to Davenport and Goodwin. As Davenport was pastor 
in Boston, the chief burden fell upon Goodwin, who was 
a leader in the movement which resulted in the founding 
of Hadley. It was through his action that so large a 
part of the legacy was secured by the new settlement. 



78 Historic Hadley 

The Hampshire County court in probate, March 30, 
1669, ratified an agreement whereby Parson John 
Russell, Jr., Samuel Smith, Aaron Cooke, Jr., Na- 
thaniel Dickinson, and Peter Tilton were constituted 
trustees to act with William Goodwin, and after his 
decease to have full power to establish the school in 
Hadley and to manage its estates, including the Hop- 
kins fund and all other property coming into its pos- 
session. Hadley 's share of the Hopkins fund amounted 
to c£308. More money was expected to come from 
England after the death of Mrs. Hopkins, but this was 
never secured by Hadley. The sum received was not 
considered sufficient to start and equip the grammar 
school. In recognition of this fact donations came in 
from citizens who, having no children of their own, 
desired to contribute toward so worthy an object for 
the benefit of future generations. John Barnard gave 
a part of Hockanum meadow and some of the " Greate 
Meadowe " and " a piece of land lying in the Forlorn " ; 
and Nathaniel Ward, at whose home in Hartford the 
"engagers" held their memorable meeting, bestowed 
his house and home lot, and a piece of meadow land; 
while a few years later, Henry Clark left to the school 
his nine-acre lot in Hockanum, and his portion of the 
" Greate Meadowe." The town itself granted " two little 
meddowes next beyond the Brooke commonlie called 
the Mill Brooke" for the support of the school, and 
appointed Henry Clarke, Lieutenant Smith, William 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 79 

Allis, Nathaniel Dickinson, Sr., and Andrew Warner 
as a committee in charge. These " school Meadows," 
containing about sixty acres, were in the northern part 
of the town, adjoining the river, and were separated 
by a high ridge on which was the Indian fort. From 
this time on the school in Hadley was known as the 
Hopkins grammar school, true to the intent of its 
benefactor. 

There is no doubt but that the little children of the 
town were gathered in some good wife's kitchen that 
first winter of the settlement and were taught by a 
"school dame" first lessons from the hornbook and 
"New England Primer," but of such teaching no 
account has been preserved. The earliest record of 
any school in Hadley states that in 1665 it was "Voted 
by the Town that they would give 20 pound pr Annum 
for 3 yeares toward the maintenance of a Scoole master 
to teach children and to be as a helpe to Mr. Russell 
as occasion may require." This first "scoole master" 
was Mr. Caleb Watson, a Harvard graduate, who was 
in Hadley in 1667 and remained as teacher of the 
Hopkins school until 1673, when his very decided 
difference of opinion with Mr. Russell made it impos- 
sible for him longer to be a "helpe" in any capacity. 
His pupils met in the house presented by Goodman 
Ward, which stood on the site of the residence owned 
recently by L. S. Crosier. Probably a few girls were 
among the scholars, although remembering the fate of 



80 Historic Hadley 

Mrs. Edward Hopkins, parents must have feared the 
effect of too much learning upon their daughters, and 
guarded their "intellects" with zealous care. Girls 
were allowed to learn to read, but not to write, and 
that historic text-book, the Latin Accidence, was not 
for them to meddle with. Arithmetic was taught by 
oral methods, as books were rare, and until 1750 
spelling books were unknown. 

The following general regulations, recorded and en- 
forced, kept parents to their duty, and children to 
their tasks. 

" Allsoe with respect to the great ffailure of persons 
in not sending their children to scoole it is ordered 
and voted by the Town that the present Selectmen and 
the Selectmen Annuallye shall take a list of all the 
children six years ould to twelve, which shall be com- 
pellable if not sent to scoole to pay Annuallye according 
to and equallye with those that are Sent only some 
poore men's children which shall be exempted as they 
shall be judged by the Selectmen And ffrom six yeares 
ould to continue till twelve at scoole except they Attain 
a ripeness and dexteritie in Inferior learning, as writeing 
& reading which shall be Judged by the Scoole- 
master." 

Every Latin "Scollard" had to pay twenty shillings 
a year, and every English " Scollard " sixteen shillings. 
In 1677 Mr. John Younglove was the teacher with a 
salary of <£30 a year, and a home lot on which to live. 
In 1680 the town voted to get a teacher "that shall 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 81 

teach the Latin Tongue as allsoe the English to any 
that are entered with writeing and Cyphering." In 
1686 Samuel Partrigg was engaged to teach, and was 
paid £8 for his work. Warham Mather, son of the 
minister in Northampton, was followed in the school 
by Thomas Swan of Roxbury, John Morse of Dedham, 
Salmon Treat of Wethersfield, Joseph Smith, the son 
of Lieutenant Philip Smith, and John Hubbard. 

When in 1698 Joseph Smith was again engaged, the 
town built the first schoolhouse, twenty-five by eighteen 
feet and seven feet between the joists, in the middle of 
the broad street. Deacon Simeon Dickinson, who 
died in 1890, aged ninety-five, remembered attending 
the Hopkins school when its sessions were held in this 
earliest building. Nathaniel Chauncey, the first grad- 
uate of Yale College, taught the school in 1702. Among 
those who came after him were Jonathan Marsh, John 
Partrigg, Aaron Porter, all Harvard graduates; and 
these were followed by Rev. Daniel Boardman, John 
James, and Elisha Williams of Hatfield, who after- 
ward became president of Yale College. Stephen 
Williams of Deerfield, Ebenezer Gay of Dedham, 
Nathaniel Mather of Windsor, Stephen Steele of 
Hartford, Solomon Williams of Hatfield, Daniel Dwight 
of Northampton, Benjamin Dickinson of Hatfield, 
follow on the list, until in 1724 Israel Chauncey, the 
son of Rev. Isaac Chauncey, for a brief period ruled 
over the Hopkins school. Most of these who have 



82 Historic Hadley 

been mentioned, and some who came later, were em- 
bryo ministers, college graduates or students in the 
midst of their college course. During all these years 
the Hopkins school had remained a classical grammar 
school, but the means by which its Greek and Latin 
courses had been preserved in the face of determined 
opposition require a separate narrative. The dogged 
determination with which these conscientious guar- 
dians of a sacred trust, with Parson Russell at their 
head, in the midst of poverty, discouragement, and 
Indian alarms, fought to keep the Hopkins school true 
to the spirit of its founder has been an object lesson 
for all trustees of public institutions since those stren- 
uous days of struggle and of victory. 

The trustees of the Hopkins fund found that the 
most profitable way in which to invest so large a sum 
of money was a problem to be solved. The building 
left by Goodman Ward could be used for a schoolhouse, 
and the meadow land given by the town and citizens 
would yield abundant crops, which could be handed 
over to the master. Elder Goodwin, in choosing his 
trustees, selected men of strong convictions, and those 
appointed by the town were no less able and efficient. 
There seems to have been clashing of wills from the 
first among the members of the board, but Goodwin 
ruled the day, and with the money built a gristmill on 
Mill River, south of the school lands, and the town 
granted a home lot for the miller. Then with the 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 83 

mill just finished, and the school just started, and the 
little town which he had labored to establish just 
gaining a foothold in the valley, Ruling Elder Goodwin 
abandoned the whole undertaking, packed his house- 
hold goods, and in 1670 removed to Farmington, Conn., 
near to his former home. 

It seems to have been impossible for Mr. Goodwin's 
determined will to brook opposition, and finding that 
men were of many minds in Hadley as well as in 
Hartford, he decided to give up the struggle as all men 
seemed to be against him. In bitterness of spirit he 
brought in 1672 a suit in the Springfield court against 
Peter Tilton and the other trustees for "intruding 
themselves upon the committeeship about ye estate of 
Edward Hopkins, improved in Hadley, contrary to 
the mind of the said Mr. Goodwin, trustee to the sd 
estate." The case was dismissed, and seven months 
later, in 1673, William Goodwin, the last Ruling Elder 
of Hadley, died a broken-hearted man. 

The court commended his services in the following 
words : 

"The Corte considering the admirable intenseness, 
the indefatigable care and paynes that Mr. Goodwin 
hath expressed to promote and advance the affairs of 
the scoole, both for its foundation and progress Doe 
thankfully accept thereof." "They acknowledge the 
good hand of God in sending those reverend fathers 
and worthy Gentlemen the said Trustees to dispose of 



84 Historic Hadley 

such an estate to these remote parts of the country 
and of this colony, for so worthy and eminent a work." 

Elder Goodwin's daughter Elizabeth remained in 
Hadley as the wife of John Crow. Deacon Rodney 
Smith, who died in Hadley in 1890, was a lineal 
descendant of William Goodwin. 

Although it may have seemed that his endeavors in 
behalf of Hadley youth were not appreciated by his 
generation, the children of the town have in these later 
days reared to his memory a noble monument. Be- 
neath the shadow of a patriarchal elm it stands, a 
handsome brick library building, containing beside 
the well selected volumes a room filled with curios 
and relics of old Hadley days. Here we see the 
interleaved almanacs in which Josiah Pierce traced 
his quaint records, a panel from the old first meeting- 
house, and many other articles rescued from the 
shadows of the past. Over the entrance appears the 
inscription, "This building was erected in the year 
1902 in memory of Elder William Goodwin, one of 
the Hadley pioneers, by his descendant John Dwight, 
and other friends and citizens of the town." 

The death of Elder Goodwin gave Parson Russell 
and the Hon. Peter Tilton each a chance to exercise 
his individuality in the management of school affairs, 
which soon became complicated by the outbreak of 
the Indian war. Being far beyond the stockade, the 
school mill was for two years protected by a small 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 85 

garrison until, one dark night in 1677, the people of 
Hadley saw the northern sky illumined by flames, and 
knew that the greater part of the school possessions 
were no more. Part of the mill-dam remained, but 
while the woods were lurking places for the enemy 
the town considered it useless to rebuild the mill, so 
the farmers again carried their grain to Hatfield, and the 
mill site was deserted. These were gloomy days for 
the Hopkins school, and Parson Russell must have 
seen his cherished vision of a flourishing classical 
institution and even of a college fade in the distance. 
But still he and his colleagues kept stout hearts, and 
faced the situation, not knowing that worse was yet to 
come. 

Robert Boltwood, an influential Hadley pioneer, cast 
longing glances at the water power going to waste at 
the ruined dam of the school mill, and taking advantage 
of the decline of grammar school interest among the 
people boldly declared he was not afraid of Indians, 
and offered the town .£10 for the site and remains of 
the dam. The bargain was completed, and in 1678 
Boltwood built his mill, and equipped it with mill- 
stones of red sandstone brought from the brow of 
Mt. Tom. We can imagine the disappointment of 
Parson Russell at this action, and his indignation at 
the prevailing indifference toward the classical course 
in the school. The Hopkins money had been put into 
the mill, and the mill was burned. The remainder of 



86 Historic Hadley 

the school funds having been given by Hadley people, 
and their desire being to have an English school, the 
matter seemed practically settled. March 30, 1680, 
Parson Russell called the attention of the county court 
to "the languishing estate of the school." His plea 
that the mill ought to belong to the school was pre- 
sented with so much eloquence that the court decided 
that it should "not allow of so great a wrong," and 
ordered that the town should pay Boltwood what he 
had spent in rebuilding, and restore the mill to the 
trustees. 

In 1682 the exchange had not been made. Philip 
Smith had been elected to the board of trustees in the 
place of his father, and to their future sorrow the 
remaining trustees had chosen Samuel Partrigg in 
the place of Peter Tilton, resigned. Russell and 
Cooke, for the trustees, appeared in the Springfield 
court and told the whole story, describing the lands 
and moneys received, the moneys spent for cellar and 
"craine" and chimney and oven and house over mill 
and "Damm," the income of £26 a year derived from 
the mill, and the tragic manner in which their grammar 
school had vanished into thin air. Samuel Partrigg, 
a man of great wealth and influence, favored the English 
school. With this disaffection within the board itself 
the case was hard indeed! Parson Russell pleaded, 
and wrote letters, and urged the matter until even his 
courage failed. Some question of title stood in the 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 87 

way, and matters rested there. In 1683 Robert Bolt- 
wood agreed to give up the mill for .£138 in grain and 
pork. Then Robert died and Samuel his son would 
not fulfil his father's bargain. 

Parties of influence outside of Hadley felt much 
sympathy for Parson Russell as he thus battled almost 
alone for the classical school so dear to his heart. 
October, 1686, John Pynchon, in a letter to Mr. 
Russell, said: 

"I am hartily sorry Mr. Partrigg is so cross in ye 
businesse of the school." "Nothing will be done as 
it ought to be until he be removed, wh I suppose 
the Predt and Council may do." "Mr. Tilton fully 
falling in with him, is as full and strong in all his 
notions as Mr. P. himself." "Mr. Tilton said it 
would kindle such a flame yt would not be quenched. 
But if to do right and secure public wright kindle a 
flame, the will of the Ld. be done." 

November 19, 1686, a town-meeting was called in 
Hadley, " when the sun was a quarter of an hour high," 
to consider school matters. Captain Aaron Cooke and 
Joseph Hawley, sent to examine into the school situa- 
tion, after wearisome waiting, received from Tilton 
and Partrigg, a committee from the town, a report that 
there was "no complaint." Then the school com- 
mittee appeared, and Parson Russell, quoting scripture, 
gave seven long reasons why the school moneys must 
be used for a grammar school. Partrigg in reply also 



88 Historic Hadley 

quoted scripture and said, "He that can teach Gram- 
mar is surely better fitted to teach English than he 
that hath no Grammar in him." 

Finally the town committee clinched the argument 
by declaring that an English school must as a matter 
of fact be a grammar school. The council dismissed 
Mr. Partrigg, and a committee of arbitration decided 
that Samuel Boltwood should be paid for what he and 
his father had expended for the mill, and that the 
property should be delivered to the trustees of the 
Hopkins fund "for the maintenance of the school to 
which it belongs." The last clause was open to almost 
any construction, and a paper passed through the town 
for signatures disclosed the fact that only eleven men 
and one woman believed that the school in question 
should be a grammar school instead of an English 
school. 

But the hard-fought battle for the continuance of 
classical instruction in Hadley was won, and the mill 
passed into the hands of the trustees, who used the 
income for the grammar school until the great flood 
of 1692 swept the whole structure away down the 
stream. The mill was presently rebuilt, and for a 
time John Clary was the miller, and after him Joseph 
Smith and his son Benjamin, and grandsons Erastus, 
Caleb, and Benjamin. The rent was used for the 
support of the school, which throughout the quarrel 
had kept up its regular sessions. 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 89 

In 1720 the school committee, as the board of 
trustees was now called, consisted of Chileab Smith, 
Thomas Hovey, Samuel Porter, Sergt. Joseph Smith, 
and Deacon John Smith. In 1733 the record states: 

"We the subscribers, Lieutenant Westwood Cooke, 
Lieut. John Smith, and Eleazer Porter of the Scool 
Committy in Hadley have made Choyce of Deacon 
Samuel Dickinson to serve as a committy man in the 
room and sted of Lieut. Thomas Hovey, one of the 
scool Committy, he being aged and crazy and declines 
the service any longer. And we have also made 
Choyce of Mr. Job Marsh to serve as a Committy man 
in the room and sted of Mr. Joseph Smith, one of our 
late scool committy men now deceast." 

Thus one by one the older members of the 
school committee dropped away and their successors 
were chosen by those who still remained. Moses 
Cooke, Deacon Joseph Eastman, "Ensine" Moses 
Marsh, Deacon Enos Nash, Samuel Gaylord, David 
Smith, Elisha Porter, Edmund Hubbard, Charles 
Phelps, Oliver Smith, Enos Nash, and Elisha Dickinson 
each took his turn in looking after the interests of the 
Hopkins grammar school. Sometimes the committee 
lent the town the money to pay the teacher, so that it 
seemed a little doubtful by whom he was engaged, but 
so long as he continued to teach the " Latin Accidence " 
it made but little difference. 

In 1743 the school committee, Eleazer Porter, 



90 Historic Hadley 

Westwood Cooke, John Smith, Samuel Dickinson, 
and Job Marsh, engaged Josiah Pierce of Woburn, a 
graduate of Harvard in 1735, to teach the Hopkins 
school, and unlike the short terms of his predecessors, 
his administration lasted until 1755. His home was 
on the present site of the church and town hall. His 
salary of £97 \ a year, with the use of twenty-five acres 
of land, and a pittance gained by serving as town 
clerk, kept his family in comfort. Although not a 
minister he occasionally supplied a pulpit, for which 
he received ten shillings a Sunday. The entries in his 
interleaved almanac have given us many facts about 
those old school days in Hadley. Somehow the select- 
men lost their grip upon both pupils and parents, for 
Mr. Pierce had sometimes five and sometimes thirty 
scholars in his school, and children came or not as they 
and their parents pleased. One day the record reads, 
"No school because no scholars sent." November 
19, 1742, we find this entry: 

"This day being the day before Thanksgiving I 
keep school all day as I have heretofore, willing to 
attend; if parents will let their children attend; but 
they the most of them, letting their children play 
about the streets rather than send them to school, I 
determine not to attend ye school in ye afternoon of 
such day hereafter." 

After twelve years of service Mr. Pierce left Hadley 
to teach in Northampton and South Hadley, but in 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 91 

1760 he returned and was again for six years the teacher 
of the grammar school. Afterwards he kept a "cy- 
phering school" in Amherst until obliged to close it 
for want of wood. This veteran school teacher knew 
some things beside the lore of books, for in 1763 he 
showed the Hadley farmers how to raise a new crop, 
that of potatoes, red in color and not at first considered 
as fit to be eaten. Eight bushels of this queer sort of 
"root" Josiah Pierce put into his cellar that first 
winter, and three years later his crop was sixty bushels. 
After a time he seems to have found raising potatoes 
more profitable than drilling Latin verbs into the minds 
of stupid scholars, for we see him no more in the school- 
room, and three hundred bushels of potatoes produced 
upon his land in 1769 supplied the whole town. Josiah 
Pierce died in 1788, having made his record not only 
as a teacher of the dead languages but also as an 
agriculturist far in advance of his time. 

The first day of the new year, 1816, was memorable 
in Hadley. In a town-meeting held that morning it 
was voted to ask the General Court that the Hopkins 
fund should be devoted to the maintenance of an 
academy for the benefit not only of Hadley but of the 
surrounding towns as well. This petition was granted. 
The people were now united in their desire for a pre- 
paratory school, and the wisdom of Parson Russell's 
policy was vindicated by the descendants of those who 
fought so bitterly against it. The trustees of the 



92 Historic Hadley 

grammar school, Seth Smith, William Porter, Jacob 
Smith, William Dickinson, and Moses Porter, after 
the incorporation of the academy was complete, chose 
Rev. Dan Huntington, Rev. John Woodbridge, Rev. 
Joseph Lyman, and Isaac C. Bates as additional 
members of the board, and began to make plans for 
a new academy building. Part of the home lot of 
Chester Gaylord was secured as a site. Many persons 
contributed building material, supplies, and labor, and 
others gave from fifty to eighty cents in money, and so 
the work went on. Another year saw a fine three- 
storied brick building on the site of the academy 
building of to-day. It was an elegant structure for a 
rural town, and people came to see it from all the 
country round. Its entire cost was $4,954.90. De- 
cember 9, 1817, the new building was dedicated. 
Rev. Joseph Lyman of Hatfield made the prayer, and 
Rev. John Woodbridge preached the sermon from the 
text, "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children." The first school session in the new building 
was held September 10, 1817, with Rev. Dan Hunt- 
ington, preceptor, Giles Crouch Kellogg and Miss 
Sophia Moseley, assistants. The next year Mr. Hunt- 
ington received $500 salary, Mr. Kellogg $20 a month, 
and Miss Sally Williston $12 a month and board. 

The new school building fronted on the middle lane, 
and the main entrance opened at first directly upon 
the sidewalk, but soon the trustees were allowed to 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 93 

enclose part of the lane for a school-yard. Two class- 
rooms occupied the lower floor, and five rooms, used 
for recitations and to contain scientific apparatus and 
the beginning of a library, occupied the second floor. 
The spacious third story, known as Academy Hall, 
was the pride of the town. At the east end, on the 
stage four feet above the floor, embryo orators spouted 
poetry, and read compositions at the Wednesday after- 
noon rhetorical exercises, to the edification of admiring 
friends. Here debates were held on abstruse subjects, 
exhibitions were given, lecturers spoke words of wis- 
dom, and diplomas were awarded to those who had 
attained a "ripeness and dexteritie" in all sorts of 
learning. Truly the days of prosperity for classical 
education, so fondly dreamed of by Parson Russell, 
were at last realized by Hopkins Academy, the daughter 
of the grammar school. 

The funds in the hands of the academy trustees, the 
year the school was opened, were increased by a grant 
from the General Court of half a township in Maine, 
which was sold, the proceeds being turned into the 
school treasury. The academy prospered greatly, 
ninety-nine students, sixty-five from Hadley, being 
enrolled the second year. Tuition was from three 
dollars to three dollars and a half a quarter, and board, 
including room rent and washing, was one dollar and 
a half a week. Those whose necessities required it 
found work to help defray their expenses. All pupils 



94 Historic Hadley 

were compelled to attend church and prayer meeting 
and the Bible was a most important text-book. Mr. 
Huntington was the preceptor until 1821. Other pre- 
ceptors were Rev. Worthington Smith, D.D., afterward 
the president of the University of Vermont, Oliver S. 
Taylor, who died in 1885 aged one hundred years, 
Rev. John A. Nash, who came to Amherst and estab- 
lished Nash's school, George Nichols, afterward rector 
of Hopkins' Grammar School in New Haven, Timothy 
D wight, of the class of 1827 in Amherst College, and 
Rev. Ezekiel Russell, D.D., Amherst College, 1829, 
who became pastor of Olivet Church, Springfield. 

In the early days of Hopkins Academy four of the 
principals each found a wife among the assistant 
teachers. In 1831 one hundred and fifty young men 
and one hundred and twenty-one young women were 
enrolled among the students, one hundred and forty- 
eight of these being from out of town. The fame of 
the academy extended west and south, and pupils 
from Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Florida 
entered to prepare for college. In 1831 the question 
arose as to the rights of the trustees to allow the benefits 
of the school to extend to so many outside of the town, 
and the matter was taken into court and decided in 
favor of the trustees. As free high schools became 
common, academies everywhere declined, and the insti- 
tution in Hadley suffered with the rest. Finally in 
1851 began the last controversy about the Hopkins 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 95 

fund, when in town-meeting Samuel Nash, Esq., Dr. 
Bonney, and P. S. Williams, Esq., were appointed a 
committee to see if the school could not be made free 
to the town. Year after year the matter was brought 
up, discussed, and left undecided. The trustees claimed 
that "the town has no more exclusive rights to the 
funds of the Hopkins Academy than to those of any 
other literary institution," and that "the trustees believe 
that it is the best for all concerned that the charter of 
our academy remain unmolested." At last in 1860 
fate seemed against the trustees, for the academy 
building, on which no insurance had been placed, was 
destroyed by fire. 

Then came the opportunity of the town. March 26, 
1860, it was voted: 

"Whereas, in the Providence of God, the Academy 
building has been destroyed by fire and thereby a 
favorable opportunity presented to the town for an 
effort to make available to all the inhabitants of the 
town the benefits of the school fund which was given by 
the town and by benevolent individuals for the promotion 
and advancement of learning ; therefore, voted ; that the 
town will erect a building suitable for the accomoda- 
tion of a Free High School, provided the trustees will 
enter into an arrangement and agreement with the 
town that they will appropriate the annual income of 
the fund to aid in support of such school." 

The trustees, though at a disadvantage, were still 
loth to give up their charter, and clung to the name 



96 Historic Hadley 

"Hopkins Academy." When finally overpersuaded, 
they insisted that the new high school should be built 
on the site of the old academy. The town objected, and 
a board of arbitration, to which the matter was submit- 
ted, stood five to five, and there the matter rested. 

For two years school was kept in the basement of 
the church. In 1862 Levi Stockbridge, Horace Cook, 
and Theodore Huntington were added to the board of 
trustees, and the offer was made that if the town 
would pay $300, the school should be free to Hadley 
pupils for one year. This proposition was accepted, 
and five years after the first vote was taken the subject 
of a high school building was again cautiously intro- 
duced, and at last it was voted to place it on the site of 
the old academy. The triumph of the trustees was 
thus made complete. Hopkins Academy of ancient 
lineage was thenceforth to be a school free to all pupils 
of the town able to meet the entrance requirements. 

During these years the school meadows had been 
gathering Hatfield soil washed over by the river, which 
made a new channel and thus created an island. This 
finally was added to the mainland, and thus the sixty 
acres first given by the town became in 1844 a hundred 
and fifty-eight acres, which the trustees were granted 
leave to sell, thereby increasing the fund to $57,325. 
The mill privilege at North Hadley was sold to L. N. 
Granger for $300. The trustees in 1890 owned ten 
acres of land on Mount Holyoke, eleven in Hockanum 



Hopkins Grammar School and Academy 97 

Meadow, four and a half in Aqua Vitse Meadow, five 
in the Great Upper Landing, two in the Great Lower 
Landing, besides sundry investments in stocks and 
mortgages. 

Many graduates of this famous old academy have 
preached the gospel throughout the earth. Jeremiah 
Porter was a home missionary on the western frontier. 
Elijah C. Bridgman and James G. Bridgman carried 
the good news to China. Dyer Ball went out to Sin- 
gapore. John Dunbar was a teacher among the 
Pawnee Indians. Dwight W. Marsh and Lyman 
Bartlett were sent to Turkey, and Henry M. Bridgman 
was a pioneer missionary in South Africa. A long list 
of ministers, thirty doctors, twenty-five lawyers, are 
included in the roll of honor. Among the eminent 
educators we find William D. Whitney of Yale, Levi 
Stockbridge, president of the agricultural college at 
Amherst, Professor Richard H. Mather of Amherst 
College, President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College. 
Thirty-eight ministers secured their wives among the 
Hopkins alumni, and in this list we find Miss Eunice 
Bullard, who married Henry Ward Beecher. Major 
General Joseph Hooker and General Joseph B. Plum- 
mer are among those educated in the Hopkins school 
who served their country in the civil war. Verily old 
Parson Russell and his colleagues who established and 
maintained the integrity of the grammar school in 
Hadley builded better than they knew. 



CHAPTER V 

THE WEALTH OF THE RIVER AND THE FERTILE 
MEADOWS 

Far up among the northern hills the brimming 
waters of two crystal fountains united in a tiny rivulet, 
which trickled southward toward the sea. "Heart 
Lake" and "Double Lake" through which it passed 
paid tribute, and four rippling mountain brooks has- 
tened to swell the stream. Now dashing over rocks 
and boulders, now broken into roaring cataracts, now 
flowing in a somber sheet within the shadow of rugged 
mountain peaks, with steady persistence the river 
shaped its course. Salmon and sturgeon leaped amid 
its rapids, and wild birds skimmed its shining surface. 
Flocks of pigeons, pausing in their flight, whitened the 
shores, and timid deer drank undisturbed the clear 
and sparkling waters. Beside the river, all along the 
way, solemn pine forests guarded curve and shallow, 
while single trees on bank and hilltop kept untiring 
watch. The summer breeze blew softly through these 
dark woods, and tiny blossoms peeped timidly up 
through crevices in the brown carpet of dry pine 
needles. No sign of civilization marred the freshness 




o 






Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 99 

of the picture. The native hunter as he glided in his 
light canoe from shore to shore seemed closely akin to 
the creatures of the woods and waters. This undis- 
covered country was the red man's heritage and his 
ancestral home. 

The Indians christened their river "Quinnetuk," the 
long river with waves. " Quonektacut " was applied 
in later years to include both the stream and the land 
along its shores. The little rill from the north, its 
tortuous journey over, found at last its outlet, and 
four hundred miles from its source poured a mighty 
flood into Long Island Sound. In place of mountain 
cliff and rocky headland, pebbly beaches and sloping 
grassy banks and open meadow lands added new 
beauty to the smiling landscape. But still the dark 
pine forests, untouched by woodman's ax, crowned 
every eminence, and clung persistently wherever they 
could find a foothold. Therefore the Indian added 
to the harsh word "Quonektacut" the poetic title 
"River of Pines." This name has long since been 
forgotten. The grim and gloomy pines which gave 
the words their meaning disappeared before the settlers' 
rude attack, and the river Indians themselves vanished 
to make way for the colonist and his civilization. A 
few dry bones and arrow heads are all that remain of 
these ancient owners of the Connecticut valley. The 
romance of the river has departed and its tale is still 
untold. 



100 Historic Hadley 

This historic stream was a most important factor in 
the settlement of the valley towns. When Indian trails 
were the only traveled paths and highways were un- 
known, this natural waterway formed a connecting 
link between the isolated villages by means of which 
they were kept in touch with each other and in com- 
munication with the outside world. The founders of 
Hadley knew the river as a somewhat fickle friend, 
which in its angry moods proved a serious menace to 
all within its reach. In early spring the frozen highway 
was suddenly transformed into a roaring torrent. A 
moving ice floe from the north swept down with 
irresistible force and miniature icebergs ground against 
each other with savage fury and were pounded to 
fragments among the rocks and rapids. Then, a 
mighty flood, the swollen river spread far over the 
meadows, and, receding, left a deposit of rich soil 
which would produce a bountiful yield of hay and 
grain. The colonist loved his river in all its moods. 
He built his house where, from the open door, he 
could discern its shining surface. In time of inunda- 
tion he kept his canoe fastened to the door-post, and 
until the water entered the dwelling refused to leave 
his home. When he discovered that the fickle stream 
by cutting through a neck of land had in a night 
removed a portion of his estate to a neighboring town, 
still with an unconquered spirit the valley farmer met 
these new conditions, subdued the forces of nature 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 101 

and taught them to become his servants, refused to be 
driven from the land of his adoption, and is buried 
to-day beside the river in the beautiful valley where he 
delighted to dwell. 

The Hadley housewife found the river a means of 
supplying her larder when other sources failed. Game 
became scarce upon the mountains and in 1698 the 
State enacted laws for the protection of deer. In 1740 
Westwood Cooke, Samuel Rugg, and John Nash served 
Hadley as "Deer Reeves," and received for the detec- 
tion of each guilty hunter half the fine imposed for 
killing game contrary to law. Even wild turkeys 
finally disappeared, but fish was always plentiful and 
free to all alike. So every Hadley farmer became a 
fisherman, and seine and scoop-net his implements of 
toil. The first settlers found shad and salmon in 
abundance. Believing that things of value were only 
to be secured by means of time and labor, for many 
years the citizens cared little for the food so easily 
obtained and were ashamed when caught with fish 
upon their tables. Pork was their medium of exchange, 
and to be eating fish implied a scarcity of pork and a 
state of poverty to be deplored. Then salmon were 
taken into favor, and shad, when scooped by mistake, 
were thrown back into the river. After many years 
the fashion changed and shad became a favorite food 
and salmon were discarded. One old Hadley resident 
who had the courage to declare that shad are very 



102 Historic Hadley 

good whether one has any pork or not was said to 
have a "very peculiar taste." But whatever the 
opinion, when game became scarce the people were 
thankful to take the food provided without question or 
complaint. The thought that fish could be worth 
money did not at first enter their minds, and there has 
been found no record of the sale of shad before 1733. 

In 1715 the General Court made an additional grant 
of a tract of land four miles square to the township of 
Hadley, so that the town should thereafter include 
within its limits what is now South Hadley and South 
Hadley Falls and control the fishing privilege at the 
"Greate Falls" on the east side of the river. Three 
other excellent fishing places, one below the mouth of 
Mill River, one a little east of the southern end of the 
same river, and another near Hockanum Meadow, 
belonged especially to Hadley. Forty salmon, weigh- 
ing between thirty and forty pounds each, were caught 
in one day near the second of these places, and here 
Enos Lyman took three thousand one hundred and 
forty fish in one prodigious haul. Josiah Pierce and 
six other Hadley men owned a seine together in 1766, 
and sold shad for a penny apiece. The first dam at 
South Hadley Falls made it difficult for the salmon to 
ascend the river, so that after 1800 few were caught in 
the upper stream. 

The settlers, having learned from the Indians their 
method of taking fish from the rocks at the "Greate 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 103 

Falls," devised improvements as facilities increased. 
Each spring time crowds of men and boys hastened 
to this famous fishing place to gather in the bounty of 
the river. The first of May became a sort of picnic 
season, anticipated through the long winter by those 
to whom vacations were unknown. Life was one 
tedious work day of interminable hours, so that the 
youth of Hadley hailed with joy an excuse for anything 
like recreation. With the approach of the shad season 
nets and other fishing implements were repaired, and 
all was made ready for the great event of the year. 
When April showers had melted the snows which had 
made the roads impassable, a straggling procession 
climbed the hills and struggled through the mud with 
all faces turned toward the "Greate Falls." Here 
were men on horseback with bags in which to load 
their fish, and here a farmer rode in his cart, and 
again a horseman led another horse provided to 
carry the load. Many brought provisions intending to 
camp upon the river bank, and others sought accom- 
modation in homes along the way. Hadley inns thus 
became crowded, and private houses were filled with 
guests. From the middle of April until toward the 
first of June all Hampshire County went a fishing. 
Fifteen hundred horses were sometimes tied to the 
trees in the vicinity of the Falls, where their owners 
were either buying or catching fish. Below the Falls 
men were drawing in the seines, and from boats fas- 



104 Historic Hadley 

tened to the rocks were taking in the shad with scoop- 
nets, while others were spearing sturgeon or making 
bargains with those who came to buy. At nightfall 
Hadley fishermen hastened homeward, but others from 
a distance camped beside the falls, and after dark, by 
the light of flaring torches, caught great lamprey eels 
which in the hill towns were much esteemed for food. 
Frolicsome boys enjoyed the sport of wading in the 
water after dark, and by the flaring torchlight, with 
the hand protected by a coarse yarn mitten, picked up 
the eels and carried them to the shore. Light and 
trifling youngsters spent the evening in wrestling and 
trials of skill, with glasses of rum for refreshment, but 
such sports were few and were frowned upon severely. 
After the fishing season fresh fish were daily on the 
family table, and quantities were cured for winter use, 
until, for self -protection, hired men, in making a contract, 
stipulated that they should be obliged to eat only 
a certain amount of salted shad. 

Next to the fisheries, after the Revolution, lumbering 
became of great importance to the valley towns. All 
along the shore new villages were springing up, and 
with the progress of civilization came the downfall of 
the forests. After the peace with the Indians in 1726, 
great logs of pine, cut in the far north by a company 
of Connecticut and Massachusetts men, floated down 
the river on the way to the king's contractor in Boston, 
who purchased them for the masts of British vessels. 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 105 

Agents of the king in every town kept watch and seized 
all logs of the required size, claiming them by virtue 
of the "Pine Tree Laws," which were very offensive 
to the people. After the Revolution pine trees were cut 
and sent to market without restriction. Timber was 
by this time scarce in Hadley, and tradition says that 
more than once logs which lodged in a farmer's door- 
yard were built into his new house with the excuse 
that being on his land they, were his property. Many 
difficulties arose between the lumbermen and farmers, 
the former bringing suit against the latter for stopping 
their logs, and the latter making complaint for the 
damage done to their meadows. Rafting was found 
to be more practicable than floating single logs, and 
often in the spring the river would be full of rafts, 
propelled by ponderous oars. With creak and groan 
and shouts of warning from the oarsmen, the great 
flotilla, laden with shingles and clapboards, swept on 
with the grandeur of an army corps, waking the echoes 
from the mountain sides, and calling the inhabitants 
to see the wondrous sight. The life of the lumberman 
was a series of adventures. Embarking near the head 
waters of the stream, exposed to storm and stress of 
weather, floating past forests infested by wild beasts, 
tossing through rapids and wedged between great rocks 
and stranded in sand and shallows, he shaped his 
tortuous course, and by skilful steering reached at 
last the haven of his hopes. Rafts of boards could 



106 Historic Hadley 

thus be transported over the falls, but sawed lumber 
had to be carted, so in 1765 the " Lumber Road " was 
built, two and a half miles in length, from above the 
falls to the landing below the rapids. Near this road, 
in the Falls Field and Falls Wood, were three saw- 
mills and a tavern kept by Titus Pomeroy, and after- 
ward there was another, the property of Daniel Lamb. 
The farmers of the vicinity, changing their occupation, 
became carriers of lumber, and the Hadley landing- 
place, taken from John Chapin's farm, was a scene of 
great activity. 

The island which had formed below Fort Meadow, 
not belonging to any one, was observed with envious 
eyes. One season the grass was cut by a Hadley 
citizen named Brooks, and when he came to get his 
hay, behold it was not there, being safely stowed away 
in the barn of Nathaniel Day across the river. In 
1770 the General Court sold the island to Solomon 
Stoddard, who made a bargain for half of it with 
Noah Edwards, and in 1803 Levi Shepherd bought the 
whole of it for $1,200. 

Commerce and articles of exchange increased, and 
the Hadley farmer, not satisfied to raft and cart his 
shingles, loading and unloading at much expense of 
time and labor, felt that the problem of more rapid 
river transportation must at once be solved. Though 
at intervals great rocks and rapids threatened destruc- 
tion to any who attempted passage, and shoals and 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 107 

shallows wrought daily changes in the channel, never- 
theless those sturdy pioneers, having subdued the 
wilderness, were not to be discouraged by waterfalls 
and sandbars. Vast projects for improvements shaped 
themselves within the public mind and were expressed 
through the public press. 

By strenuous efforts the settlers had been able from 
the first to carry on some traffic with their friends in 
the upper valley, and thus secure many things needful 
for their comfort. " Greate Canoes," laden with three 
or four tons of "Flower" and "Porke" and beaver 
skins, and managed by two men, were the first freight 
boats to run the rapids, but the passage was both 
difficult and dangerous. Then came the "Falls 
Boats," a kind of shipping now extinct. These were 
of two kinds: "Pine Boats," twenty-five tons burden, 
with neither cabin nor floor, and " Oak Boats," which 
were fitted up with comfortable accommodations for 
the crew. The tiny cabin, lighted with four windows, 
was warmed by a cook stove, and provided with four 
bunks, which in the daytime were turned up against 
the side of the boat. A mainmast, topmast, mainsail 
and topsail, made it possible to take advantage of the 
slightest wind, and there were two pairs of stout oars 
with which, when breezes failed, the boat could be 
moved along. Loaded with farm produce, shingles, 
ash plank, furs, and fish, these unwieldy vessels would 
move slowly down the river, assisted through the rapids 



108 Historic Hadley 

and over the falls by experienced pilots who lived 
along the shore. How the boys and girls must have 
shouted and the women have run to the doors to 
see the Dispatch, or the Flying Fish, or the Clinton, 
or the Vermont come sailing bravely by! The name 
of each vessel, painted outside its cabin in large 
black letters, was scanned with interest from the 
shore, and many a farmer hailed the boatman to learn 
the news from up the river, or ask for transportation 
for something he had to sell. 

Having no keel, these Falls Boats slipped over rocks 
and sandbars and without much difficulty reached their 
destination, delivered their cargoes, and were loaded 
again with all the various goods in the country store 
for use by the farmer and his family. Then came a 
time of trial. All those weary miles the heavily laden 
boat was poled up stream, with ash poles, assisted 
sometimes by the wind but more often in a perfect calm. 
Poling was the hardest work known and caused 
much lameness and blistering of the skin in front of 
the shoulder, for which a frequent application of rum 
was a remedy. An old writer says, "It was also 
thought well to take some inside." When the boat 
reached the rapids in its progress up the stream, either 
it was hitched to an ox team on shore, or several men 
would take the place of oxen. Reaching smooth water, 
and aided by a friendly breeze, it would dash onward 
at the furious speed of five miles an hour toward the 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 109 

next obstruction in the river. "Then," says the old 
writer, " the heart of the boatman rejoiced within him 
and the river bank echoed his songs of cheer, while the 
tired husbandman stood still and listened as the song 
and the voice passed by." 

In 1792 the General Court passed an act incorpo- 
rating a company entitled, "The Proprietors of the 
Locks and Canals on Connecticut River." Great 
excitement prevailed at South Hadley Falls, where 
the first attempt at digging a canal was made. Gun 
powder was the only explosive known, and drilling was 
done by the hands of men. Outside parties contributed 
funds, and at last a dam was constructed, and the 
work went slowly on. Two miles and a half through 
solid rock the channel for the canal was cut. The 
water, flooding the adjacent meadows, produced fever 
and ague and indignant citizens clamored for the 
removal of the dam. Those interested in the fisheries 
demanded a fishway that the shad might go up the 
river to their spawning shoals. The "Proprietors," 
however, persisted in their undertaking. December, 
1794, the work was so nearly completed that a day of 
celebration was appointed, and many men and women 
were allowed to ride in the great car up and down the 
inclined plane. South Hadley Falls was now the most 
interesting place in the Connecticut valley, and hun- 
dreds of sightseers came on horseback to view this 
wonderful engineering feat, supposed to be of immense 



110 Historic Hadley 

advantage to all engaged in transportation on the 
river. 

Hadley had now completed its first century and was 
a veteran among New England towns. The primitive 
dwellings had been replaced by comfortable homes. 
Double rows of English elms, the patriarchs of to-day, 
planted on either side of the broad street, were growing 
straight and tall. The fertile meadows bore yearly 
their autumnal harvest of hay and grain. Wheat, rye, 
and barley flourished on the uplands, and great fields 
of Indian corn, that native product of the soil, fur- 
nished the farmer and his family with the hasty pudding 
which was his staple food. Josiah Pierce had taught 
his neighbors how to raise potatoes, but turnips were 
liked much better. The women made from flax the 
cloth for garments, bed clothing, and table linen, and, 
adding wool to flax, made linsey-woolsey for dresses, 
and to be exchanged for household utensils and im- 
ported stuff for gowns. 

Levi Dickinson, a native of Wethersfield, who came 
to Hadley in 1786 and settled on the "Back Street," 
brought with him a queer new kind of "corn seed," 
which he showed his friends, saying that when fully 
grown it would make better brooms than they had 
ever seen. Hearing this, the Hadley housewife laughed 
him to scorn. "Husk brooms," to sweep the ovens, 
and " splinter brooms " made of birchen boughs, were 
good enough for every day, while the bristle and hair 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 111 

brooms, brought from England, certainly could not be 
surpassed by a farmer with any kind of corn. Thus 
reasoned the incredulous and argued not the case. 
Levi Dickinson, however, not discouraged, kept his own 
council, harvested the first crop of broom corn from 
his garden, contrived a method of scraping the seed 
from the brush with a knife, and afterward with the 
edge of a hoe, and sitting in a chair with the twine in 
a roll under his feet wound it around the brush in his 
lap and thus made brooms. Not asking his neighbors 
to buy, in 1798 he peddled Ins brooms in Williamsburg, 
Ashfield, and Conway, and said that the day when he 
sold his first broom was the happiest day of his life. 
In 1799 he carried brooms to Pittsfield and in 1800 
as far as New London. 

Then Hadley people began to realize that a new and 
profitable industry had been started in their midst. 
Cato, a colored man, planted some broom corn in the 
meadow, and William Shipman, Solomon Cooke, and 
Levi Gale began to raise the corn and manufacture 
brooms. Men in Hatfield and Whately went into the 
business, and Levi Dickinson, smiling to himself, calmly 
drove his teams loaded with brooms to Boston and to 
Albany and found a ready market. Making his own 
handles and spinning the twine from his own flax, the 
cost of the broom was little and the demand for the 
finished product was great. In 1810, 70,000 brooms 
were made in Hampshire County, and before the death 



112 Historic Hadley 

of Levi Dickinson in 1843 people in all parts of the 
country were using Hadley brooms, and his triumph 
against local prejudice was complete. Broom corn had 
been cultivated for its seed in southern Europe, and a 
small amount was raised in the southern states, but 
the credit of planting it in large quantities and sup- 
plying the whole country with brooms belongs to Levi 
Dickinson. In 1850 Eleazer Porter, who took the 
census, reported forty-one broom factories and 769,700 
brooms and 76,000 brushes produced in a single year 
within the limits of the little town of Hadley. 

The canal had served its purpose in part when 
steamboats began to be used for transportation, 
and Hadley people were led to hope that they too 
might have a share in the benefits of this marvel- 
ous invention. The citizens longed and watched 
and listened for the little towboat Barnet, built in 
New York to ply upon the river. When, after many 
failures to ascend Enfield Falls, she was hauled bodily 
over the rocks and really appeared around Hockanum 
Bend, propelled by the wondrous power of steam, the 
people made a great rush to get on board the barge 
which she had in tow, and thus secure a share in this 
novel excursion. Then came the memorable flood, 
when travelers were taken in boats from Hadley Street 
across the meadows to Northampton, and buildings, 
trunks of trees, ruins of mills, bridges and fences, hay, 
pumpkins, apples, and cackling hens came dashing 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 113 

down the stream to be landed along the shore. The 
river itself seemed to resent invasion by this puffing, 
wheezing monster of steam and took revenge on all 
within its reach. 

The steamer Vermont next started out from Hartford, 
bound for the Green Mountain State. Her passengers 
exclaimed with delight at the beauty of the scenery as 
she passed within the shadow of Titan's Pier, where 
columnar rocks rise high above the water's edge. 
Here was the abode of Manitou, the Great Spirit, 
and here two Indians were pursued and driven off 
the cliff to find death in the unknown depths below. 
Just beyond, to gain a few rods in distance, the 
vessel was compelled to travel four miles through 
the Ox Bow. The grandeur of those majestic moun- 
tains, valued chiefly as "woodlots" by farmers of the 
valley, impressed the strangers from the south, who 
gazed with surprise at the primitive hotel, kept by 
Willis Pease of Hadley, which, on the high summit 
of Mount Holyoke, appeared against the glowing sky. 
Past Stoddard's Island, over School Meadow Flats, 
beneath the sandstone cliff of Sugar Loaf, toward 
the green hills of her namesake state, steamed the 
Vermont, creating the hope that passenger traffic on 
the river had at last really commenced. 

The summer of 1831 the steamboat William Hall 
left Hadley for Hartford three times a week, connecting 
with steamers for New York. Those were gala days 



114 Historic Hadley 

for Hadley, but alas, the fates seemed unpropitious, 
and though many small steamboats were built and put 
into commission, yet the steamboat company failed, 
boilers burst, the shoals and currents shifted, and 
floods destroyed the work of years in a single night. 
One wintry morning, February 25, 1840, the people of 
Hockanum were surprised to find that the river had 
worn away the neck of the peninsula and cut a new 
channel for itself, thus making an island of three 
hundred acres of land, owned by Hadley farmers and 
worth thousands of dollars. 

The reign of the steamboat could not be prolonged, 
for the day of the railroad was near at hand. July 4, 
1845, the steamer Franklin left the wharf at Hadley, 
with two hundred people on board, "from the beauty 
and chivalry of West Street," bound for Montague. 
There they passed the day, enjoyed a picnic dinner 
with speeches and music, and returned in safety. This 
is the last we hear of steamboating at Hadley. That 
same year the people, crossing the toll bridge, could 
board the train behind the engine " Holyoke " and jolt 
away toward Springfield and the south. Opponents 
of the railroad became reconciled as its usefulness in 
carrying freight became understood. One enthusiast 
even found the railroad picturesque, and viewing the 
spring freshet from the tower of the church wrote 
thus to the Hampshire Gazette: 



Wealth of River and Fertile Meadows 115 

"The swollen river lay spread out at our feet in 
broad expanse, while scarce raised above the flood, 
the long straight line of railroad extended, and the 
ponderous train flying o'er it seemed like some huge 
sea bird, skimming the yielding wave with tireless 
wing." 

Years later the Boston & Maine Railroad, passing 
through Hadley, connected Northampton with the 
capital city of the state, and since then the trolley has 
given Hadley citizens freedom to choose their ways 
and means of travel. The "huge sea bird" of iron 
and steam still flies over the "yielding wave" when 
the river overflows its meadows, but the river steamer 
is a thing of the past. The Pine Boats and Oak Boats, 
the captains and pilots, are unknown to the present 
generation. The scream of the locomotive echoes 
from the mountain sides, and all along the shore the 
trolley cars rush wildly seeking for their prey. The 
romance of the river has departed, its quiet and seclu- 
sion are invaded, its great pine forests are destroyed. 
Yet, unconquered, it takes its tortuous course, refusing 
to be curbed, impossible to control, declining to be 
improved, a wilful stream the same in nature as when 
the white man first gazed upon its waters. 

To-day, as summer travelers admire the beauties of 
the Connecticut, the prosaic sunlight leaves little for 
imagination to feed upon. Yet, when beneath the 
midnight moon all discordant sounds have for a 



116 Historic Hadley 

moment ceased, through the winding sheet of mist 
which hovers over the river's surface we fancy we 
catch the echoing dip of a shadowy paddle, and discern 
a light canoe darting from shore to shore. The 
unquiet ghost of some old Indian boatman has returned 
to haunt the valley and stream which were his ancient 
heritage. Again the river banks are clothed with dark 
pine forests, and from their depths the deer come 
down to drink and all is quiet sylvan beauty. The 
River of Pines is again a reality. To him whose eyes 
have been unsealed, for this magic moment the old 
days have returned. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BURIAL PLACE OF HADLEY's HONORED DEAD 

Within the limits of the little river town, during the 
long years of effort and accomplishment, there had 
grown up another settlement, — the Hamlet of the 
Dead. Here, in 1661, on the Meadow Plain, near the 
home lot of Edward Church, the body of an unnamed 
infant of Philip Smith, grandchild of Lieutenant Sam- 
uel Smith, the first settler, was buried without prayer 
or service. A few months later Governor John Web- 
ster was in the same rude fashion, near the grave of 
the nameless child, placed beneath the sod. This 
was the beginning of Old Hadley cemetery, and here 
within the area of two hundred and ten square rods of 
rolling upland were buried for more than one hun- 
dred and thirty years all who died in Hadley. 

Some sort of stone must have been placed at the 
grave of Governor Webster, for when in 1812 Noah 
Webster, his descendant in the fifth generation, came 
to live in Amherst, he had no difficulty in finding the 
resting-place of his distinguished ancestor, and erected 
above the same a monument to his memory, that bears 
the following words: 



118 Historic Hadley 

"To the memory of John Webster, Esq., one of the 
first settlers of Hartford in Connecticut, who was many 
years magistrate, or assistant and afterwards Deputy 
Governor and Governor of the colony, and in 1659 
with three sons, Robert, William and Thomas asso- 
ciated with others in the purchase and settlement of 
Hadley, where he died in 1665." 

The date here given, which is four years later than 
that given by the historian and genealogist, was prob- 
ably indistinct upon the old stone, and therefore copied 
incorrectly. 

This burial-place remained as Nature had left it 
during all those early years. No attempt at improve- 
ment or formal laying out of grounds was made, but, 
as overcome by disease, or slain by Indians, or worn to 
death by hard and constant toil, the weary workers 
ceased their labors, they were laid to rest beneath the 
pines and cedars and the life of the town went on as 
before. Nathaniel Ward, whose death occurred soon 
after that of Governor Webster, left his empty house 
a bequest to Hadley youth. John Hawkes and 
Thomas Stanley were the next of the first settlers to 
be carried on the shoulders of their fellow townsmen 
to their last long home. John Barnard, Richard 
Church, Stephen Terry, William Westwood, William 
Partrigg, and Andrew Bacon died in close succession, 
and Thomas Coleman followed them in 1674. Henry 
Clark, the patron of the Hopkins School, amid the 



Burial Place of Hadley's Honored Dead 119 

terrors of the first Indian war, was taken out by night 
and left in the lonely cemetery. The next year Na- 
thaniel Dickinson, Joseph Baldwin, Thomas Wells, 
and Richard Goodman, the latter killed by Indians 
while viewing his fences, were escorted to the grave- 
yard by an armed guard and hastily interred. Parson 
Russell was called upon, in 1689, to mourn the death 
of his father, John Russell, Sr., and in 1681 the town 
lost Richard Montague, the grave-digger whose services 
as a baker for the soldiers when quartered in Hadley 
had saved them from starvation. Lieutenant Samuel 
Smith died in 1680, Andrew Warner and Robert 
Boltwood in 1684, and Philip Smith in 1685 met his 
death because of the practises of a witch. Samuel 
Porter, a strong supporter of the church, in 1698 
rested from his labors in its behalf, and with Samuel 
Moody was laid beside his colleagues. One by one 
the old "engagers," Francis Barnard, Peter Tilton, 
William Markham, Timothy Nash, and Parson Russell 
himself, gave up their toils and struggles, until the close 
of the century found only Joseph Kellogg and John 
Hubbard living of those who built the first little homes 
on the broad street. A few years later every one of 
that valiant company except John White, William 
Lewis, John Marsh, William Goodwin, and John Crow, 
who had removed to other towns, were inhabitants of 
that silent settlement where wars and tumult were 
unknown. 



120 Historic Hadley 

No costly marble monuments mark the graves of 
those old first settlers, for they died in the midst of 
troubled times when care for the living was more 
important than unnecessary expense for the dead. A 
few rude gravestones were erected, some with figures 
carved upon their surfaces, and inscriptions which 
moss has overgrown and time obliterated. Slate stones 
were set up for those who died in later years, and after 
1800 marble slabs were placed to mark the resting- 
places of those ancient worthies whose lives were their 
best monument. Many slaves were also buried in the 
old cemetery, but the rough stones on which were cut 
their names and virtues have long since crumbled 
away. No hearse was owned in Hadley until 1826. 
The path through the home lot of Edward Church 
was worn and beaten by the feet of the bearers as they 
passed in slow procession with the bier upon their 
shoulders to the place of burial. The minister stood 
among the neighbors who gathered round the grave, 
but no word was said and no prayers offered. Such 
were the funeral fashions of the fathers in colonial days. 

The graves of three Hadley pioneers, Captain 
Aaron Cooke, Chileab Smith, and John Ingram, are 
marked with ancient headstones. The stone at the 
grave of Dr. John Westcarr, who died in 1675, seems 
to have been placed in position many years after 
his death. The old historian states that in 1858 there 
were only ten stones in the yard with dates earlier than 






Burial Place of Hadley's Honored Dead 121 

1720, and on many of these the inscription is now 
entirely obliterated. The oldest monuments in the 
cemetery are the sandstone tables erected in 1692 to 
the memory of Parson Russell and his wife, Rebekah. 
The inscription on the first, which is fully legible, 
reads as follows: 

rev russell's remains who first gath- 
ered AND FOR 33 YEARS FAITHFULLY 
GOVERNED THE FLOCK OF CHRIST IN 
HADLEY TIL THE CHEIF SHEPHERD SUD- 
DENLY BUT MERCIFULLY CALLED HIM OFF 
TO RECEIVE HIS REWARD IN THE 66 YEAR 
OF HIS AGE, DECEMBER 10, 1692. 

The words above Rebekah declare: 

rebekah made by god meit help to 
mr john russell and fellow laborer 
in Christ's work, a wise vertuous 
pious mother in israel lyes here in 
assurance of a joyful resurrection, 
she died in the 51 year of her age, 
november 21, 1688. 

The graves of Rev. Isaac Chauncey and of Rev. 
Chester Williams are marked by upright sandstones, 
while a marble monument points out the place where 
lies Rev. Samuel Hopkins. Each of these stones bears 
an appropriate inscription describing the life and 



122 Historic Hadley 

character of him who is buried beneath the stone. 
The cemetery was enlarged in 1828 and covers at 
present about four acres. Here, during all the years 
of its eventful history, the descendants of the first 
"engagers" have one by one returned to lay their 
friends and relatives by the side of the common ances- 
tors, the founders of the town. Here is the newly 
made grave of Bishop Frederic D. Huntington, an 
illustrious son of Hadley, and every famous name of 
the old-time pioneers is repeated again and again on 
ancient and modern headstones. 

No need is there to recite or emphasize the heroic 
deeds of each calm sleeper. The story is written in 
the history of the land which their sons and daughters 
have peopled with a race of men and women worthy 
of their sires. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Allis, William 4, 79 
Amherst 50, 53, 91, 117 

Amherst College 71, 94 

Angel of Hadley, The 27 

Army from Connecticut, The, 34 

Ashfield 111 

Attack on Hadley, The 35 

Austin, Rev. Samuel 61 

Ayres [Rev.] Roland 72 



Bonney, Dr. 95 

Boston, Joshua 48 

Bradstreet, Simon 40 

Branford ]0 

Breck, Rev. Robert 54 

Bridgman, Elijah C. 97 

Henry M. 97 

James G. 97 

Brown, Rev. John 72 

Broom Industry, The 110 

Burgoyne, General 64, 65 



B 



Bacon, Andrew 




15, 


118 




Baldwin, Joseph 




16, 


119 


Chapin, John 106 


Ball, Dyer 
Barnard, Francis 






97 


Church, Benjamin 55 


16, 


28, 


119 


Edward 16, 117, 120 


John 




78, 


118 


Richard 16, 42, 43, 118 


John, 2nd, 


15, 1 


1,28 


Chauncey, Rev. Charles 41 


Joseph 






21 


Rev'. Isaac 40, 43, 49, 121 


Samuel 




42 


,45 


Israel 53, 81 


Barnet, The 






112 


Nathaniel 81 


Barnstable 






10 


Richard 50 


Bartlett, Daniel 






66 


Clark, Henry 16. 78, 118 


Lyman 






97 


William 12 


Bates, Isaac C 






92 


Clary, John 88 


Bayne, Rev. J. S. 






72 


Clinton, The 108 


Beaman, Rev. Warren H. 


72 


Coleman, John 4 


Beecher, Henry Ward 




97 


Thomas 15, 118 


Beers, Captain 






25 


Colt, Benjamin 62 


Belding Samuel 






4 


Commissioners of the New 


Billing, Richard 






4 


England Colonies 28 


Bloody Brook 






28 


Conway 111 


Boardman, Rev. Daniel 




81 


Cook, Horace 96 


Boltwood, Robert 


16, 


85, 


119 


Cooke, Aaron 10, 15, 31, 43, 


Samuel 






88 


46, 78, 87, 120 



126 



Index 



Cooke, Aaron, Jr. 




25 


Edwards, Jonathar 


i 56, 


, 57, 63 


Moses 




55, 89 


Noah 




106 


Noah 




63 


Emmons, Rev. Nathaniel 61 


Solomon 




111 


Enfield Falls 




112 


Westwood 55, 


89, 


90, 101 


Essex, England 




8 


Cowls, John 




4, 62 








Crow, John 16, 


33, 


84, 119 








Cullick, John 




77 


F 

Falls Boats 




107 


D 






Falls Fight, The 
Fellows, Richard 




32, 33 
4 


Danforth, Francis 




72 


Field, Zachariah 




4 


Davenport, John 




77 


Flying Fish, The 




108 


Dedham 




81 


Franklin, The 




114 


Deerfield 


3S 


!, 53, 81 








Dickinson, Azariah 




26 








Benjamin 




81 


G 






Elijah 




69 








Elisha 




68, 89 


Gale, Levi 




111 


Hezekiah 




44 


Gardner, Samuel 




16 


John 




15, 32 


Gay, Ebenezer 




81 


Levi 




L10, 111 


Gaylord, Chester 




92 


Nathaniel 2,4,: 


8, IS 


!, 14, 26, 


Nehemiah 




66 




78, 


79, 119 


Samuel 




56, 89 


Nathaniel, Jr. 




4 


Goffe, General William 


23, 31 


Nehemiah 




45 


Goodman, James 




55 


Reuben 




50 


John 




15 


Samuel 




4 


Richard 2, 5, 


15, 30, 44 


Samuel, Dea. 




89,90 


Goodwin, William 


11, 


16, 77, 


Simeon 




81 




78, 


82, 119 


Thomas 




14 


Grannis, Edward 




21 


William 




92 


Graves, Isaac 




4, 12 


Dispatch, The 




108 


John, 




4 


Dunbar, John 




97 


Thomas 




4 


Dwight, Daniel 
John 




81 










84 








Timothy 




94 


H 






Pres. Timothy 




70 








Dwight Memorial Library 84 


Hampshire Troop, 


The 


25 



Eastman, Joseph 89 

Eaton, Gov. Theophilus 75, 77 



Harrison, Isaac 

Hartford 1, 3, 4, 8, 31, 44, 76, 

78, 81, 113 

Harvard College 9, 41, 53, 79, 

81, 90 



Index 



127 



Harvard, John 75 

Hatfield 4, 25, 26, 32, 54, 67, 

81, 92, 96, 111 



Kellogg, Joseph, Jr. 37, 55 

Kelsey, Seymour 66 

King Philip 24, 28, 36 



Hawkes, Gershom 


36, 37 








John 


16, 118 








Hawley, Joseph 


43, 87 


L 






Hooker, Rev. 


61 








General Joseph 
Hopkins, Gov. Edward 


97 


Lake George, Battle of 


59 


75,76 


Lamb, Daniel 




106 


John 


69 


Lewis, William 


2, 


15, 119 


Rev. Samuel 54, 57 


, 60, 67, 


Lincoln, General 




67 




69, 121 


Locke, Dr. William 




34 


Hopkins Academy 


96 


Longmeadow 




57 


Hopkins Fund, The 


78, 95 


Lothrop, Captain 


25 


, 28, 34 


Hopkins Grammar School 79 


Lyman, Enos 




102 


Hovey, Thomas 


89 


Israel 




68 


Hubbard, Edmund 


62, 89 


Rev. Joseph 


67 


, 70, 92 


John 12, 15, 


81, 119 


Phineas 




62 


Joseph 


55 








Humphrey, President 


71 








Hunt, Ebenezer 


70 


M 






Huntington, Rev. Dan 


59, 92 








Rev. Frederic Dan 


59, 122 


Magnalia, The 




38 


Theodore 


96 


Markham, William 


3, 


16, 119 



Indian Fort, The 
Ingram, John 



James, John 



5, 79 

16, 120 



si 



Keedy, Rev. E. E. 72 

Kellogg, Ezekiel 55 

Giles, Crouch 62, 92 

Joseph 7, 11, 14, 21, 31, 32, 

34, 119 



Marsh, Daniel 45, 55 

Dwight, 97 

Ebenezer, 55, 62. 

Job 55, 89, 90 

John 3, 16, 119 

Jonathan 46, 81 

Moses 55, 62, 63, 66, 67, 

89 

Martin, Rev. Benjamin 72 

Mather, Cotton ' 38 

Nathaniel 81 

Prof. Richard H. 97 

Warham 81 

Meekins, Thomas 4, 12 

Montague, Peter 45 

Richard 7, 15, 20, 34, 119 

Moody, Samuel 16, 40, 119 

Morse, John 81 

Muddy Brook 28 



128 



Index 



N 



Nash. Enos 






57 


, 89 


John 








101 


Rev. John A. 








94 


Josiah 






66 


, 68 


Samuel 








37 


Samuel 








95 


Newbury, Thomas 








10 


Timothy 




16, 


34, 


119 


New Haven 


23 


, 70 


i, 75 


, 94 


New London 






19, 


111 


Nichols, A. 








16 


George 








94 


Noble, Medad 








66 


Northampton 4, 


. 5, 


14, 


17, 


20, 


25, 26, 32, 53, 


56, 


59 


,61, 
90, 


81, 
112 


North Hadley 








96 


Norwalk 








53 


Norwich 








33 


Nye, Ichabod 








66 



Parsons, Rev. David 61, 70 

Joseph 43 

Partrigg, John 81 

Samuel 34, 40, 43, 44, 81, 



15, 118 

113 

59, 67, 68, 89 

62, 63, 84, 90, 

102, 110 

111 

16 



William 
Pease, Willis 
Phelps, Charles 
Pierce, Josiah 

Pittsfield 

Pixley, Wm. 

Plummer, General Joseph B. 97 

Pomeroy, Ebenezer 66 

Titus 106 

Pomfret 54 

Porter, Aaron 81 

Eleazer 46, 47, 48, 54, 63, 
89, 112 

Elisha 63, 64, 65, 89 



Porter, Experience 97 

Jeremiah 55 

Jonathan Edwards 64 

Moses 56, 58, 60, 68, 69, 92 

Samuel 15, 34 

Samuel, 2nd 43, 44, 45, 46 

63, 67, 68, 89, 92, 119 

Samuel, 3d 55 

Prentice, John 19 

Proprietors of the Locks and 



Canals 


109 


Prutt, Arthur 


49 


Zebulon 


51 


Pynchon, John 


1, 2, 20, 24, 28, 




43, 87 



R 



Rand, Rev. W 7 illiam 


53 


Reed, Thomas 30 


,32 


Regicides, The 


22 


Riddle, Rev. William 


61 


Rugg, Samuel 


101 


Russell, Rev. Ezekiel 


94 


John 3, 14 


, 19 


Parson John 1, 3, 10, 


11, 


15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 29, 


31, 


34, 39, 40, 75, 78, 86, 


97, 


119, 


121 


Jonathan 


10 


Philip 


9 


Samuel 


10 


Russell Church, The 


71 



Saratoga, Battle of 64 

Seelye, Pres. L. Clark 97 

Slavery in Hadley 48 

Shays, Daniel 67 

Shepherd, Levi 106 

Shipman, William 111 

Smith, Benjamin 88 



Index 



129 



Smith Caleb 68, 88 

Chileab, 1st 16, 120 

Chileab, 2nd 46, 89 

David 89 

Dudley 65 

Ebenezer 42 

Eliakim 56, 62 

Enos 58, 67 

Erastus 88 

Ichabod 55 

Jacob 71, 92 

John, Dea. 46, 55, 89 

John 90 

Joseph 81, 89 

Noah 63 

Oliver 62, 66, 89 

Percy 68 

Philip 15, 31, 37, 38, 86 

117, 119 

Rodney 84 

Samuel 3, 4, 6, 12, 15, 17 

25, 30, 65, 78, 117, 119 

Seth 92 

Timothy 66 

Warham 63 

Windsor ' 68 

Rev. Worthington 94 

Smith College 97 

South Hadley 52, 90 

South Hadley Falls 102, 109 

Springfield 12, 25, 28, 32, 54, 94 

Standley, Thomas 4, 7 

Stanley, Nathaniel 15 

Thomas 4, 7, 15, 118 

Steele, Stephen 81 

Stockbridge, Levi 96, 97 

Stratford 41 

Strong, Governor 60, 70 

Sunderland 53 

Swan, Thomas 81 



Taylor, John 



16 



Taylor, Oliver S. 94 

Stephen 4 

Terry, Stephen 16, 118 

Tilton, Peter 6, 15, 23, 31, 78, 
83, 119 

Traynor, Francis 66 

Treat, Salmon 81 

Turner, William 32 



U 



United Colonies of New 

England 76 

Utrecht 44 58 



Vermont, The 108, 113 

Vermont, University of 94 



W 

Ward, Nathaniel 2, 5, 16, 78, 

79, 82, 118 

Warner, Andrew 16, 44, 79, 119 

Daniel 4 

Jonathan 62 

Oliver 52, 55 

Orange 45 

Warren, Lemuel 68 

Watson, Caleb 79 

Webster, Gov. John 3, 16, 19, 117 

Mary 15, 37 

Noah 117 

Wells, Jonathan 33 

Thomas 12, 15, 119 

Thomas, Jr. 21 

Westcarr, Dr. John 20, 21, 120 

Westfield 3, 32 

West Springfield 57 

Westwood, William 2, 4, 7, 10, 

12, 15, 118 



130 



Index 



Wethersfield 1, 4, 8, 9, 


81, 


110 


Whalley, Gen. Edward 


23 


, 24 


White, Daniel 


4 


, 67 


John 2, 4, 


15, 


119 


John, Jr. 




4 


Nathaniel 


46 


, 67 


Whitefield, Rev. George 




54 


Whiting, Rev. John 




10 


Whitney, Prof. William D 


97 


William Hall, The 




113 


Williams, Rev. Chester 54, 


56, 






121 


Rev. Ebenezer 




54 


Elisha 




81 


Rev. John 




53 


Solomon 




81 



Williams, Rev. Stephen 
Williamsburg 



57, 81 

111 

3, 10, 15, 81 



Windsor 

Witchcraft in Hadlev 37 

Woburn 90 

Woodbridge, Rev. John 69, 92 

Worcester, Rev. Leonard 61 



Yale. David 76 

Elihu 76 

Yale College 54, 57, 72, 81, 97 

Younglove, John 80 



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